ALT Statement on the British Steel industry and the government’s Failure to protect workers and communities As Scottish Greens gathered at our conference on Saturday, the House of Commons were discussing the “Steel Industry (Special Measures) Act 2025”. A bill which while stopping short of nationalisation showed that it is possible for central government to step in and take control of industry in the face of multinational corporations who refuse to act in the best interests of the workers and their communities. These are bad faith actors who refuse working class communities any form of just transition instead preferring something akin to the ruin left by the deindustrialisation of the Thatcher era.

ALT The Scottish Greens Trade Union Group commend Labour for choosing to forsake the neoliberal orthodoxy in this situation and take some level of control of British Steel, keeping the Scunthorpe site running. However, we cannot understand why they will not show the same urgency to secure the future of the Petroineos Oil Refinery at Grangemouth or the Tata Steelworks in Port Talbot which closed late last year. Both of these sites would have a clear and important role to play in a just transition for both industries, they are both hugely important to their respective communities like Grangemouth. The fact that Scunthrope is deemed worthy of saving while Grangemouth and Port Talbot aren’t sends the message that Scottish and Welsh industry are not essential, that workers outside of England have no role to play in Labour’s economic vision. This represents a bizarre display of English nationalism from a party normally so insistent on Scotland’s continued place in the United Kingdom.