POLICY is as much about what governments ignore, refuse to do, or fail to do as what they actually achieve. Nowhere is that as clear as in the case of the Grangemouth oil refinery and how deindustrialisation has historically been handled in Britain.
 
As most people are aware, towns (and eventually communities) were built around the industrial work that was brought to cities, so as deindustrialisation occurred in Scotland, the communities that were formed around industry eroded.
 
Glasgow and Dundee have the highest rates of drug-related deaths, and both are areas with a rich industrial heritage. The decline of industry resulted in poor economic circumstances and social alienation in these once tight-knit communities, creating fertile ground for drug abuse among the communities’ population.
 
This worsened with the resulting lack of money to enjoy aspects of life with those in their communities. There was just less to do. They did not have the time or money for hobbies, nor were there accessible leisure facilities in the community.

This alienates people from themselves and those around them, leading to poor mental health, which puts those in this situation at a higher risk of problematic drug use.

Given the bulk of deindustrialisation occurred almost half a century ago, the argument that the drug death crisis was caused by deindustrialisation becomes far more abstract, but the Scottish Drugs Forum has identified that there is a clear link between the drug death crisis and deindustrialisation.
 
The workers and the community surrounding Grangemouth are being severely let down by the government’s failure to act, but there is an opportunity to safeguard not just jobs today but lives in the future.

Beyond that, it’s about ensuring Scotland’s industry belongs not to self-serving corporate interests but rather to those who live and work in the community and those most affected by the refinery’s future.

A nationalised Grangemouth presents the opportunity to transition Scotland to Net Zero in a way that creates jobs and benefits workers, something that would never happen with oil and energy in the hands of private businesses that will always put profit ahead of what is best for people and the planet.
 
To put Grangemouth in the aforementioned historical context, we can see a clear mirroring of the failures in policy that allowed Scotland’s industrial heritage to collapse, causing deepening economic divides throughout the country.

This economic deprivation is one of the root causes of the drug death crisis. The loss of purpose, leisure, identity, heritage, and stability has, in many places across Scotland, been replaced with substance abuse as a form of escape from alienation.
 
A nationalised Grangemouth refinery would put power back in the hands of the local area. The wealth generated by the workers could be put straight back into the community rather than being funnelled into the deep pockets of private shareholders.

If our industries were nationalised for the public good, then perhaps Falkirk councillors would not be being asked to consider reducing school hours to save money, as this money could instead be invested in the public rather than Franck Demay and the rest of the Petroineos board hoarding the wealth generated by the workers.
 
Government’s failure to nationalise and ignoring of its responsibility to protect the Grangemouth refinery can be seen as a broader set of failures to meaningfully tackle economic deprivation, rebuild local communities and provide new opportunities for those living in the community.

Nationalising the refinery could be part of a broader strategy to invest in these communities, providing the stability and infrastructure necessary to combat not just addiction but other health issues that are more prevalent in economically deprived areas.

This is representative of a broader approach that has been the dominant political narrative in which market forces and profits are prioritised before people.

In Grangemouth, we see a highly skilled workforce being left with nothing while the industry in which they are skilled will likely be outsourced to wherever Petroineos can extract the most profit from the workers, a theme we have seen since the beginning of deindustrialisation, where third world workers are exploited for cheap labour and people at home pay for imported energy.
 
They closed the pits and industry in the 1980s, killing communities, and we have seen the social fallout. To refuse to nationalise Grangemouth or take any significant steps to protect workers and the community surrounding the refinery would make it clear that government policy is for private profit above not just the material conditions of the workers but their lives.

Keir Starmer and the Labour front benches must listen to the trade unionists fighting for jobs at Grangemouth for both the workers today and for those living in the community 50 years from now.