SCOTTISH Labour leader Anas Sarwar tried to sell the British Labour government’s virtues to the Scottish TUC today — just before the announced closure of Grangemouth exposed its failure to defend industry or jobs.

Mr Sarwar included a promised £200 million to secure the refinery and petrochemical plant’s future among the achievements of Keir Starmer’s government, though the money was intended to attract larger sums in private investment and has not been deployed.

He blamed the Scottish National Party for Scotland’s industrial decline, saying on its watch Scots had had “a new bridge across the Forth built with Chinese steel, scores of new wind turbine contracts sent around the globe while Scottish workers missed out, new ferries for Scotland’s islands built in Turkey and Poland and Scotland’s natural resources and seabed flogged off on the cheap to foreign multinationals.”