"Oh no, hang on, that was fifty years ago before they cancelled the lot just as it was ready, and dismantled all the teams with their accumulated experience and expertise. And then stonewalled every attempt to revive them."
Black Arrow managed to launch a single small satellite at roughly the same time that NASA were firing 3000 ton Saturn 5 missions and driving golf buggies on the moon. They were just too under-invested and slow. The cash had all gone to Concorde.
In fact much of the UK tech (which had begun as nuclear missile development) went to Europe as a first stage and seeded the eventual development of Arianne.
UK is still very good at space craft though, just lost the launcher tech.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
