By Liz S
A delegate at the STUC Conference tells Anas Sarwar and Labour a few home truths on Grangemouth.
The Morning Star also noted this in their headline:
“Scottish Labour leader’s ‘shameless opportunism’ slammed”
The delegate stated this:
“As I stand here, workers at Grangemouth — my friends and my colleagues — will walk out for the last time as over a century of oil refining comes to an end,”
‘”It’s a private business, there’s nothing we can do, it’s a commercial decision’ — that’s what they’ve been telling us, and yet everything we called for has happened, just not at Grangemouth”
(He, the delegate, means Sarwar as that was his excuse to Colin Mackay STV News when he was challenged by Colin on not saving jobs at Grangemouth refinery as he promised pre the 2024 GE, Sarwar just kept repeating “It’s a private company” – however it was also a “private company” when Sarwar said Labour would save the jobs there during his GE campaign in 2024).
“We welcome the intervention at the steelworks at Scunthorpe. For us, this is not site versus site, or workers versus worker — for us it’s certainly not either/or”.
“Yet that is exactly what this UK Labour government has done. They have supported one site while turning their back on another”
“In a blistering attack on Mr Sarwar, he continued”:
“They will point to the £200 million national wealth fund — in fact Anas Sarwar did so in this very room today — but let me put the record straight”
“Not one job of my colleagues, not one single job at that refinery will be saved through this intervention, so for Anas or anyone else to suggest otherwise is simply disgraceful“
“They are even trying to take credit for the redundancy deal negotiated between this union and the employer — shameless opportunism“!
“At Grangemouth, we have become used to the endless peddling of rubbish from political leaders, ‘we would step in and save the jobs’ — do you remember that one“?
“Those were the words of Anas Sarwar on national television“
“He (Sarwar) now seems to have forgotten what he said on Grangemouth, but let me say here today: the workers of Grangemouth, I can assure him, haven’t forgotten — nor will they forgive”
“Have others sat on their hands? Of course they have, and not least the Scottish government, but the reality is that Labour is now in charge.
“Are Labour going to sit on their hands, or will they finally stand up and keep Grangemouth working”.
The delegate got a very good response and applause.
Good to know that there are some who, like us on here, identified that Sarwar made pledges to Grangemouth prior to the 2024 UK GE which neither he nor Labour UK delivered upon for Grangemouth while they , Labour UK, did deliver for Scunthorpe (what with the May local elections coming up in England).
Also good to know that this delegate sees that “the reality is that Labour is now in charge” even though he also cast aspersions upon the Scottish government who he said also “sat on their hands”.
So then it seems that we now once again must go back to the real problem which is always somehow forgotten by so many, which is that our Scottish government is not one that governs an independent country, where all powers, control, decisions and importantly all money is available to them as a government.
A government who runs a country that is independent then has the ability , the powers and significantly the money to protect and save industries and jobs in it’s own country, That is not what Scotland has.
This delegate also noted that it was mentioned that Grangemouth was owned by a “private company” and that situation BTW was not because of the current Scottish government but that was an action by Westminster who tied their own hands when it gave Grangemouth to the private sector.
Also the current Labour UK government , based, as a UK government at Westminster, provided a £600 million guarantee to Jim Ratcliffe’s “Private” company, INEOS, to build a large petrochemical plant in, checks notes, Antwerp.
The First Minister John Swinney had also announced an additional £25 million to establish a fund to help secure the future of Grangemouth.
How Anas Sarwar had the brass neck to show his face at the STUC Conference and make a speech is evidence as to how he, as a Labour politician, has no shame or regret in him lying to and betraying workers at Grangemouth.
Vote SNP in 2026 or expect to see even more lies and betrayal unfold via Anas Sarwar as his Labour party political campaigns are strong on slogans but not so strong on delivering what the slogans promised they would deliver.
Labour “Change” = literally a change of party as the new UK government so formerly it was a Tory UK government and now it is a Labour one- tick
Labour “New Direction” – literally means if Labour were in power then they would (obviously) go in a different (New) direction from the SNP who were the previous Scottish government – tick
So really take the (Labour) slogan as literal… but , as a slogan, it has no real substance to it at all.
If Change (for the better) had really happened with Labour UK then why have Labour in Scotland now dropped it as their main slogan, now it’s “New Direction” for the 2026 Scottish elections, which is also open to interpretation, or rather, open to abuse with Labour.
Labour who just cannot be trusted to either “change” as a party or indeed for them as a potential new Scottish government to take Scotland in any direction other than the wrong direction which would indeed be a “New Direction” compared to the SNP who have always taken us, within Scotland, in the right direction).
Liz S
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
My eldest son works at Grangemouth, is a union rep, but doesn’t contribute to the Labour Party, and while he is not in any immediate danger of losing his job, he forecasts the plant will close completely within five to ten years. And that is an optimistic assessment.
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George Caldow
In what little coverage (I have given up on expecting proper analysis in Scottish or UK MSM) I have seen or read, it has been about points scoring by Politicians.
The truth is not so easily constrained within a soundbite.
Ineos’s management is poor. To have “failed” to make a profit at a time of such high oil prices is unimaginable however they state they have. We have had statements of intent regarding introducing new technologies yet they have failed to complete many of the projects announced to much fanfare. They received money from the Scottish Government to build a BioDiesel plant yet it never came to fruition. Where did that £50 million go?
Grangemouth is an old plant and has not received the integrated investment it requires to be brought into the 21st Century. The power plant cannot work for new technologies but the replacement is years behind completion. The Cracker to split the oil needs replaced every few years and should be changed from gas to electric but no one will be the first to do so.
There are some parts of the problem that Politicians could assist with.
The EU and UK have imposed some legislation in terms of Health and Safety and Environmental which impacts badly against other producers worldwide which allows them to have significantly reduced costs. (Higher costs in terms of the environment and labour safety but the dollar is king)
There have been requests for tariffs to equalise the costs to prevent not just Scottish capabilities but also much in Europe to be retained. In an era where our “national security” of supply is deemed essential, if only in England, we need our own Trump but an intelligent one.
North Sea oil is not uniform. The constituents vary but each part of the complex has its own environmental regulations. As such, it is not possible to use Methane as the gas for the Cracker as it cannot be legally moved from the initial site hence it is flared off. If it could be moved and used within the other parts of the complex it would reduce the demand on Natural Gas which would lead to reduced prices elsewhere.
No one has asked the question, with all the potholes where will we get our bitumen from? Another constituent which could be utilised at other parts of the site.
The Energy costs Grangemouth and other industrial sites face are solvable if Politicians would legislate that electricity costs should be based on cost of production and not based on the gas equivalent.
To build a larger, more productive industrial base, we need a proper strategy, not soundbites. The SNP cannot continue to lay the blame at Westminster’s door when they don’t set out what an Independent Scottish Government could do.
This is the biggest own goal we’ll get under Starmer. We never exploited the ones we had under Cameron, May, Johnston or Sunak. We have to exploit this.
Operation Willow is pie in the sky. Without support to our renewable sector, it will fail. Acorn carbon capture, improvements to the Scottish grid, skills investment so production is based in Scotland. Set targets for spend on projects which must be spent in Scotland.
Highland have a new offshore submission in which the company say, “They will consider using Scrabster.” When we will we insist on those jobs we were promised.
We will need Oil and Gas for the foreseeable future so we need to take Grangemouth into public ownership and manage our security of supply needs while ensuring we reduce emissions by using the technology available.
If we stopped Oil and Gas today, we may be vitreous but naked. We’d lose a lot of our medical equipment. Back to using horses as rubber tyres don’t last long and where would we get the rubber. In the 19th century environmentalists were campaigning against the horse as London would be a yard deep under the horse manure and cars arrived to save them.
We need Keynesian investment to produce the infrastructure and growth to fund the future. Not Neoliberal greed, Oligarchs’ and bankers.
Will any one who purports to be for Independence come out and show a way to turn around Grangemouth and the Scottish industrial base or will Starmer complete Thatcher’s destruction of the hope for Scottish Independence?
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GLAD THIS CHARLATAN IS BEING EXPOSED
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THIS LYING CHARLTON SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM ANY POLITICAL POSITION IN SCOTLAND WE HAD BROWN AND HIS CRONNIES LYING TO SCOTS
TO LINE THEIR OWN POCKETS
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THIS CHARACTER SHOULD BE DEPORTED
SCOTLAND DOES NOT WANT OR NEED ANY MORE DODGY UNIONIST
LYING TO SCOTS
KICK THEM ALL OUT OF SCOTTISH POLITICAL OFFICE
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Eh? This is not the US…we don’t deport’ people! Also can you ditch the upper case it’s just really annoying and not necessary, thanks.
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