Labour MP for Alloa and Grangemouth BRIAN LEISHMAN: Thatcher abandoned the miners 40 years ago... now my own Labour government is in danger of recklessly casting aside Grangemouth
To quote Winston Churchill: ‘Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
To quote Winston Churchill: ‘Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.’ It may seem odd for a Labour MP to quote a Conservative Prime Minister, but I have good reason for doing so.
For my party is sleepwalking into an industrial disaster. We must not turn our back on workers and their families, just as Margaret Thatcher abandoned mining communities four decades ago.
To give some context to this statement, which I write with huge sadness and not a little fury, I have worked tirelessly over the past few months to tell anyone and everyone who will listen that the closure of the oil refinery at Grangemouth – planned for next year – will be cataclysmic.
As the constituency Labour MP for Alloa and Grangemouth, I have put country before party, as my leader Sir Keir Starmer said we should when us new MPs arrived in Westminster after the general election. On that, he was right.
I have warned that if the refinery does close, the impact will be devastating for the local Grangemouth economy, including for the hotels, restaurants, cafes, snack vans and small businesses.
Labour MP for Alloa and Grangemouth Brian Leishman says his party is sleepwalking into an industrial disaster
I have told how if it shuts, shockwaves will reverberate across Scotland – and beyond – as in a volatile world, a country’s fuel and energy security is the country’s national security.
And I have reminded my party that the primary responsibility of any government is to keep its citizens safe.
I have said that allowing the refinery to close would be a complete dereliction of duty. Yet here we are – in a position where hundreds of jobs will be lost, thousands in the wider supply chain, and a community is on the brink.
The UK Government has said it is focused on finding a viable clean energy future for Grangemouth and has provided £100 million funding, alongside the Scottish Government, to help the workforce find good, alternative jobs and invest in the community.
This is misleading because £80 million was already provided. The actual figure is £10 million from the UK Government and £10 million from the Scottish Government.
If both governments think this is an appropriate response to thousands of job losses, then they are naïve, or negligent.
Project Willow, a joint investment programme between the UK and Scottish Governments for the Grangemouth area, gave the impression of action and collaboration over the issue.
However, the recommendations Project Willow will produce are years away from being realised.
Regarding Grangemouth, the Prime Minister said his government would ‘do everything that they can’.
But I judge someone by their actions, not their words. And so far, the actions both governments have taken fall way short.
Because the truth is that the government could do more. They could take a transitional stake in the refinery, they could even go further and fully nationalise it.
At the general election, voters anticipated that Labour – the party of workers and industry – would deliver ‘change’.
I certainly thought we would come to an arrangement to keep Grangemouth working. I have had conversations with Ministers who were receptive to engaging in talks about the UK Government taking a transitional stake.
Such a move would save jobs, guarantee continued operations until the future industrial alternatives are ready and, crucially, provide the just transition the refinery workers deserve, and the national security we all need.
‘The company [Petroineos] were very clear that there was no viable commercial future for the refinery operation. It would not be right for the government to underwrite a business that does not have a viable commercial future,’ the UK Government told The Mail on Sunday. I despair at that comment.
The UK Government should question the word of football club owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe and a company owned by a hostile foreign power, PetroChina – which make up Petroineos, Grangemouth’s current owner – who claim the refinery is not profitable.
I would like to see, if they exist, the UK and Scottish Government’s economic impact assessments on the future of Grangemouth.
Petroineos has claimed the refinery is losing £383,000 a day.
But surely Ministers cannot have ignored the £108 million of profit listed in Petroineos’s accounts?
Why have the UK and Scottish Governments not questioned the narrative of the closure being a ‘commercial decision’, despite this figure?
This year, we should be celebrating the 100th year that oil has been refined at Grangemouth.
Back in 1924, the town was the ideal location for a refinery due to the bustling port, the abundance of flat land and a local workforce with experience of shale refining.
For decades, the refinery was the heartbeat of the local community; it brought prosperity to the town, it provided apprenticeships – a route of positive social mobility – and nearly all local residents, known as Portonians, know someone that has worked or works at the refinery.
The same residents still fondly refer to the refinery as ‘the BP’, harking back to the days when that company owned it and invested in the community.
Gala days were a fixture in the calendar, sports fields were created by the oil giant, as were social clubs that were kept busy by locals.
Grangemouth was a hive of economic and social activity, even boasting four banks and an assortment of shops. Yet those heady days now seem impossibly remote.
The Labour government has not brought about the proper scrutiny of PetroChina, owned by a foreign government, and Ineos, a private company, dictating the closure of a key piece of national infrastructure essential to Scotland.
It is the workers and their families who – like the miners in the 1980s – will pay the cripplingly high price for that.
But I am left with two messages.
The first, to my constituents and the workers: I will stand by you, I will put country before party and I will continue to fight for the UK Government to step in.
The second, to my leader and his Ministers: it is not too late to be on the right side of history.
It is not too late to save the refinery, the workers and our community, and to heed the words of Churchill and learn from what happened to the miners.
