Keep Grangemouth Working hustings put candidates in the hot seat

The general election hustings held in the town on Tuesday evening saw an invite issued to all the candidates standing in the new Alloa and Grangemouth constituency, formed on the back of Boundary Commission changes to even out the number of voters in each area.

Six of them accepted the challenge to attend the event, organised by the Keep Grangemouth Work campaign supported by Unite the Union, which was chaired by Roz Foyer, who is the general secretary for Scottish Trade Unions Congress (STUC).

Those attending were the SNP's John Nicolson, who was MP in the former Ochil and South Perthshire constituency, along with another political veteran Alba candidate Kenny MacAskill.

Labour’s candidate and Perthshire councillor Brian Leishman was on the panel, as was independent Eva Comrie.

Nariese Whyte for the Scottish Greens and Tom Flanagan from the Workers Party of Britain were the final candidates to appear.

Richard Fairley from Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats Adrian May did not attend.

Conservative Rachel Nunn sent her apologies citing family illness for her non-appearance but sent Falkirk Conservation candidate James Bundy, who grew up in Grangemouth, in her place.

Refinery shop steward Chris welcomed everyone to a packed Bowhouse Community Centre, before explaining more about the campaign, launched after the shock news on November 21 last year from Petroineos that it was preparing to change the plant into an import terminal.

He said: “This would mean the UK would go from six to five refineries and Scotland from one to zero. There are around 500 jobs at the refinery but thousands more directly reliant on the site. We are told no more than 100 would be direct employees at the new terminal – that’s a loss of 80 per cent of the staff.”

The campaign has three key demands he told those attending: extend the lifetime of the refinery; invest in the future of Grangemouth; and transition to greener energy.

He added: “Over 7000 emails have already been sent to MSPs urging them to support the bid to safeguard local jobs. Our refinery is the beating heart of industrial Scotland and we must keep it working.”

The candidates were all then invited to make a brief statement before answering a series of questions from workers put to them by Roz Foyer. The meeting was then opened up to take questions from the public and that’s when, as you might expect, things began to get a bit lively.

All of the candidates were vociferous in their support for the refinery and its workforce – and scathing in the failings of both the UK and Westminster governments in not doing anything to save the jobs.

Kenny MacAskill quoted from the Proclaimers’ song Letter to America, saying that he didn’t want on the back of “Bathgate no more, Linwood no more” that it would be a case of “Grangemouth no more”, saying it was wrong that “Scotland is energy rich and so many are fuel poor”.

Eva Comrie said if the refinery closed it would be a “hammer blow for Scotland” and called for collaboration to find a solution, while Brian Leishman said the proposal was the “greatest industrial threat to Scotland in decades”.

John Nicolson said the threat was a worry “not just for workers but the whole community”, adding: “I spoke to the First Minister John Swinney and he said that he would fight for Grangemouth right and centre.”

“Community wellbeing and a secure future for the workers” must take precedence said Nariese Whyte.

Tom Flanagan said he was the only candidate living in Grangemouth and felt the fears of the entire community and the workforce. “Direct intervention is needed to allow the refinery to expand and then we need to come up with a plan for jobs transition,” he added.

James Bundy said the UK Conservative government “should be more involved” and the proposal for the import terminal was a “blunt injustice to the people of Grangemouth and Scotland”.

The hustings concluded with a rallying call from Unite Scottish secretary Derek Thomson, who said their would be a march for jobs in Grangemouth on July 20.

He said: “We cannot allow the oil and gas workers to become the coal workers of this generation.”