The central importance of the Morning Star for trade unionists and the left in Scotland has never been in doubt, and the STUC has long supported its promotion and distribution in Scotland. 

But if fresh impetus were needed, the events of mid-October at the Grangemouth petrochemical plant should inspire us all to redouble our efforts to grow the readership and encourage all progressive forces to do the same.

As I have written elsewhere, the events at Ineos revealed all we needed to know about where power lies in Britain today, and it is frightening. 

The story of Grangemouth is that the government was powerless to prevent one individual deciding the fate of a strategically vital national industrial asset, its 1,300 strong workforce, and thousands more workers besides, and the fate of a local community.

And while Ineos CEO Jim Ratcliffe’s decision not to proceed with the closure of the petrochemical plant following the workforce’s acceptance of his “recovery plan” was variously described as another illustration of the “lack of union power and influence,” it was in fact a crisis for political and industrial democracy.

Despite all the cajoling of Scotland First Minister Alex Salmond, Energy Secretary Ed Davey and Secretary of State for Scotland Alistair Carmichael, it took the Ineos workforce and their union Unite to take the decisive step that made it impossible for Ratcliffe to walk away as he was determined to do just two days previously. 

It is beyond belief that one of the supposedly most powerful nations on the globe was incapable of stopping the closure of the Grangemouth plant. 

The closure of a community centre in Grangemouth would have required a more extensive due process and greater transparency and accountability than was involved in the decisions to close a vital industrial facility. 

Some part of this analysis was recognised by the Scottish media. 

In the week prior to the Ineos ultimatum, some journalists did recognise the nature of the company — venture capital-funded, lightly regulated, “too big to fail” in the context of the British fuel market and the wider supply chain and with an aggressive management style. 

But there was a near universal failure by journalists when judging the role of Unite within the dispute to apply any of this context in a way which might have reached a more nuanced understanding of why things happened as they did or what the implications might be. 

Within days we were treated to an anti-union narrative, promulgated not just by the right-wing media but by centre-left commentators whose cut was deeper because they purported to be the labour movement’s friend. 

What was lost among the many other issues involved at Ineos that the strike ballot of Unite members had a turnout of 86 per cent — exceptional by any standards — with 82 per cent in support of strike action and 92 per cent in support of action short of strike. 

Implicit in this legal requirement on the union to ballot is the expectation that the employer will recognise its outcome and the strength of feeling it demonstrates and respond accordingly — a fact which was generally ignored by the mainstream media.

The mainstream media’s tendency when talking of unions to focus on perceived negative and hostile emotional responses — “anger, fury, threat, threaten, battle and attack” — has been extensively documented. Unions are led by “bosses, barons and chiefs.” 

In this context it may seem natural to employ similar pejoratives such as “capitulation” and “surrender” when unions suffer a reversal, but it’s not good journalism. 

During the dispute it was as painful to witness the mindless adherence to stereotype as it was to watch the vitriolic assault on decent and committed trade unionists such as Stevie Deans. 

Given the Scottish media’s overwhelming obsession with the independence debate, it was also surprising that it failed to provide any real analysis of the implications of the Ineos dispute for the the Scottish constitutional debate, a debate which is meant to be about where power should lie. 

The debate about powers will be of little real relevance if government, wherever it sits, does not have the power to prevent private equity capital threatening the stability of a country’s economy.

That is why it matters that there is at least one national daily newspaper available in Scotland which is committed to supporting trade unionists and providing the real news, a paper which understands where power lies and why and how it should be challenged.

Grahame Smith is general secretary of the STUC.