STEPHEN Flynn has called for Labour to consider nationalising Grangemouth as the UK Government mulls a takeover of British Steel.
Keir Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves are actively considering nationalising British Steel, with the company at risk of running out of raw materials within weeks.
It comes as the steel industry deals with a 25% tariffs on exports to the US, which came into force last month.
SNP Westminster leader Flynn has now insisted Starmer must give the same consideration to the Grangemouth oil refinery.
Last month, the Project Willow report into options for the Grangemouth site – the UK’s only oil refinery – found the site must switch to green energy to meet its vast need for power, and then use that to produce new products such as sustainable aviation fuel.
However, funding models have remained unclear after the UK Government's £200 million pledge was cast into doubt. It was revealed the cash may come in the form of loans or only with outside investment.
Those developments followed UK ministers previously refusing to nationalise the refinery.
Flynn has argued the Grangemouth site is of clear strategic national importance and, just like British Steel, must be reconsidered in the context of the global economic storm caused by Donald Trump's tariffs.
"If British Steel is considered viable for nationalisation as an industry of strategic national importance then our ability to sustain our energy demand surely is too. "The UK is isolated in a global economic storm and we need a re-think from the Labour Government in that context – energy security is a matter of national security and Grangemouth is central to that. "Scotland's vast energy wealth has a role to play in supporting our European partners as America becomes an increasingly unreliable ally and we should view all of our assets in those conditions, particularly as a global trade war rages."
Flynn added the future of Grangemouth is a "litmus test" for any government that "reports to take our energy security seriously". He went on: "The Labour Government keep telling us 'the world has changed', but it's time they rose to that challenge, ditched the fiscal rules and invested in key strategic priorities including our energy sector - that brings security, it brings growth and it secures jobs."
Hundreds of jobs are set to be lost at Grangemouth when the oil refinery there, owned by Petroineos, closes. MPs were told last week potential projects to replace the Grangemouth refinery could be off the ground by 2030 "if not before".
The Project Willow report detailed nine potential avenues, including the production of sustainable aviation fuel, which is backed by union leaders.
Speaking before the Scottish Affairs Committee, Anu Bhambi, a partner at the report’s author EY-Parthenon, said: “Our hypothesis is that you could have some assets off the ground by the end of the decade, if not before.”
