THE Unite trade union is considering proposals to withhold support from Labour candidates unless they back a campaign to seize the assets of the company that owns the Grangemouth oil refinery.
In a sign of worsening of relations with plant owner Ineos, Unite will debate whether to link backing for Labour at Westminster and Holyrood with support for nationalising the company's operations without compensation.
Unite's attempt at influencing Labour's Westminster selection contest in Falkirk, in which the union signed up more than 100 new members in a bid to help their favoured candidate, has big political ramifications.
The sign-up, which was linked to the Ineos plant at Grangemouth, led to the party rethinking its links with all its trade union affiliates. It also spiralled into a major industrial dispute.
It has now emerged Unite will reopen the Ineos issue at its UK policy conference in June. A copy of the preliminary agenda contains a motion signed by two Scottish branches.
It condemns the "threat by Ineos's Ratcliffe [Jim, Ineos chairman] to shut down operations in Grangemouth" and said it was "unacceptable" for "one individual to be able to wield such power".
The motion also commits Unite to "campaign for the nationalisation without compensation and under workers' control of all Ineos assets in the United Kingdom".
It called for this demand to be a "major focus" of the union's campaigning in the run-up to the next Westminster and Holyrood elections, including "withholding support from any candidate who does not support that demand".
Unite is the biggest union donor to Labour, but the party has not backed calls to seize any of Ineos's assets.
If passed, the motion could result in only a handful of left-wing Labour candidates receiving funds from Unite and starve Ed Miliband of resources.
Ineos and Scottish Labour both declined to comment.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article