Bus manufacturer Alexander Dennis has announced the closure of its Falkirk factory, with 115 job losses. Its nearby Larbert plant will be converted to a chassis manufacturing site, safeguarding around 200 roles that were previously at risk. This comes despite receiving £4.1 million from the Scottish government in September 2025 to protect jobs, after the firm threatened to shift production to Yorkshire, putting up to 400 roles at risk. First Minister John Swinney visited the Larbert factory to announce the bailout. Months later, the axe has fallen anyway. This is a scene oft repeated. A company/bank/post office announces closure, the SNP and the rest fulminate and demand a reversal of the decision – then closure happens and off go the parliamentarians on to the next bandwagon.
Nearby Grangemouth has also faced closure. Scotland’s last oil refinery ceased production in April 2025, with more than 400 direct job losses, destabilising a supply chain of nearly 3,000 workers.
At the same time, Scottish public sector contracts are being sent abroad. The publicly owned CALMAC is having ferries built in Poland (seven new electric ferries) and Turkey (four vessels), while the nationalised Ferguson Marine shipyard misses out. And the bus contracts? Under the Scottish government’s Zero Emission Bus Challenge Fund (ScotZEB2), 523 electric buses were funded. Fewer than a third (31%) were built in Scotland. More than half—287 buses, 55% of the total—were built in China. That’s nearly four times as many orders to Chinese manufacturers as to Scottish industry.
The series of ineptocratic governments we have seen over decades now need to go. The economy is upside down where something like 20% manufacturing industry is supposed to support 80% services. It is unsustainable.
The Socialist Labour Party has long argued that this needs to be reversed; as manufacturing bleeds jobs and capacity, the economy remains stagnant with manufacturing output in Scotland falling 4.3% in the first half of 2025 yet government plods on into oblivion continuing failed neoliberal policies that enrich an elite that many are now understandably referring to as the “Epstein” class but lead to the impoverishment of working class communities and decrepit, crumbling infrastructure. The SLP manifesto points out how this can be reversed.
You can begin that process by voting Socialist Labour Party on May 7th.
James McDaid
Lead Candidate, West Scotland Region