The Point

Last updated: 27 June 2022.

Rosyth Dockyard: Independence and Labour Hypocrisy

 

Does Rosyth Dockyard Have a Future?... asks Jock Penman

 

An article in the Dundee Courier dated 27th Sept 2013 annoyed me somewhat as it proclaimed, "Yes vote 'risk' to Rosyth dockyard." Not very original, up to date, nor correct it quoted Dunfermline and West Fife MP Thomas Docherty as saying, "It is clear that, without Royal Navy contracts, West Fife industry faces a very bleak future." However, doubting Thomas had written on his blog, "It is clear that thousands of jobs at Rosyth are being put at risk by the SNP's independence agenda," on Nov. 14th 2011. So what is clear is that this is merely a continuation of the scaremongering of the No Campaign.

It is a petty point-scoring exercise designed to narrow the argument down to party bickering. Just because many of us support the fight for independence does not mean we are SNP members or even supporters. And the issue of independence is the most important for 300 years.

Rosyth Dockyard certainly does not have a guaranteed future after the two aircraft carriers are completed, no matter the result of the referendum, and it has already lost thousands of jobs due to privatisation. The whole nature of modern warfare dictates that fewer men, fewer ships, fewer tanks, fewer artillery etc are needed in today's armed services. Most of the killing is done by computer-guided missiles.

The defence industry has been undergoing massive upheavals over the past twenty years with 11,000 jobs lost in the past decade.

Rosyth Dockyard has been in the position before where work has run out. The management at Babcock bid for alternative work refitting railway carriages and the workers quickly adapted to the new work. They are a skilled group of workers so it would not faze them if they had to look for alternatives. And there are no shortage of products - of all scales - which will be required in an independent Scotland, especially one investing in the renewables revolution and the second wave of gas and oil.

It is somewhat ironic that the Labour Party is pressing the panic button over threats to the Rosyth (and Faslane) workforce. I was involved in a committee which looked at this very same threat.
 

It was the early '80s and it looked like Labour might well win the next general election. At that time Labour had a principled stance against nuclear weapons and had promised to scrap the nuclear submarines. As responsible trades unionists we couldn't just sit back and wait for the axe to fall; we had to do something, so we began to investigate alternatives along the lines of the Lucas Aerospace unions had done successfully at that time. Only a handful of trades unionists got involved but we had support from some Labour Party activists.

We had Henry McLeish, who later became First Minister, and who also came up with the name – F.A.D.E. which stood for Fife's Alternative to Defence Expenditure. (Good name!!) We also had Margaret Millar, who later became the first ever Lady Provost of Dunfermline, Alex Falconer, who later became the MEP for Mid Scotland & Fife, Lewis Mooney, who later became a junior Minister under Tony Blair, and Gordon Brown, who later became Prime Minister. We organised a conference in an attempt to involve more dockyard trades unionists and our main speaker was Robin Cook, who later became the Foreign Secretary, and he gave a sterling speech against nuclear weapons. For our part, trades unionists like me were banned from the nuclear complex for our efforts.

I had no reason to doubt their honesty or sincerity and they all did a good job on behalf of the Rosyth workforce. And they rightly reaped the electoral benefits. But the dishonesty of current Labour Party spokespersons really bugs me.

The future of Rosyth Dockyard is far from secure under a Westminster government and the yard is nothing like it used to be. There are all sorts of industries based in the industrial estate where the Naval facilities used to be, before Thatcher ran down the workforce in the late '80s, and the Navy left the scene.

The best chance we have in Fife and the country as a whole is for more alternative industries, incorporated into an economic industrial plan to ensure the future of the workforce in Rosyth and Faslane, and to ensure an independent Scotland has the services, goods and utilities it requires. Rosyth Dockyard could play an important part in that. The possibilities are many, and the dangers no worse than we have at present.

(Jock Penman was Chair of the Joint Shop Steward's Committee at Rosyth Dockyard in the early eighties.)