A “HORRIFIED” Sir Keir Starmer has called on the SNP Scottish government to intervene after Lanarkshire’s steelworks were mothballed.

The Prime Minister made the remarks after workers were placed on furlough at Clydebridge and Dalzell, plants which have struggled for orders since they were bought by the steel company Liberty House Group, itself owned by the multinational GFG Alliance, in 2016 — with the help of a £7 million Scottish government loan.

GFG Alliance and its owner Sanjeev Gupta, who bought the Lochaber aluminium smelter with a £586m Scottish government guarantee the same year, are now the subject of a Serious Fraud Office probe as part of ongoing inquiries into the collapse of financier Greensill Capital.

Slamming it as a “bad deal” the Prime Minister wrote in the Sunday Times: “This Labour government will always support our proud steel industry.

"So I’m horrified that the Dalzell and Clydebridge steelworks in Lanarkshire are lying mothballed, with workers on furlough.

“All because the SNP negotiated a bad deal and have had no industrial strategy to bring work to those mills.

“We’re standing up for Scottish steel – now [First Minister] Swinney needs to step in and get those plants up and running again.”

Alasdair McDiarmid, assistant general secretary of steelworker’s union Community, welcomed Sir Keir’s intervention.

He told the Star: “This is a site of huge strategic importance and potential, and should be at the heart of an industrial strategy for Scotland.

“As we highlighted in our recent Steel Reforged report, with the right investment and upgrades, Dalzell could help meet the burgeoning steel plate demands of the offshore wind industry and the UK defence sector. 

“It is unacceptable that Dalzell remains idle, and the SNP government in Holyrood cannot continue to sit on their hands and do nothing.”

SNP MP Pete Wishart hit back: “The audacity of Keir Starmer to attempt to wash over the UK government’s betrayal of Scottish industry is insulting.

“They put emergency support in for Scunthorpe steelworks and deliberately legislated to exclude Scotland, and therefore Dalzell works, from any such help — now, or in the future.

“Westminster did nothing to help the SNP save Dalzell. It did nothing to help us save Lochaber. And now it has done nothing to save Grangemouth.
 
“Like the Tories, Labour is making it abundantly clear that Scotland will always be an afterthought for Westminster.”