Blame the workers, it’s absolute bullshit (apologies for language).
My view is privatization opened up the British market to globalization, and fundamentally once everyone is trying to get things for the cheapest price the domestic supply chain shrinks, in the UK it has shrunk to the point it vanished. Other countries with stronger protection for domestic production (like the US with the Jones act and dredging acts, Norway) avoided exposure to the global market and survived.
The Jones Act and friends are exactly what turned US shipbuilding into rent-seeking. You can have protectionism or you can have manufacturing, but not both.
My view is privatization opened up the British market to globalization, and fundamentally once everyone is trying to get things for the cheapest price the domestic supply chain shrinks, in the UK it has shrunk to the point it vanished. Other countries with stronger protection for domestic production (like the US with the Jones act and dredging acts, Norway) avoided exposure to the global market and survived.