Might Grangemouth save Salmond's dream or Unite destroy Scotland's heartland ?

It look like high noon at the Grangemouth industrial complex in the central belt of Scotland.

The NUM school of industrial suicide is being pushed by the Labour party's new owners the Marxist lead Unite Union.

The problem is they seem no smarter than those at Coryton.

Here's the thing there are some hyper effiicient large refinneries being built around the world. Those in the middle east have economies of super scale and cheap labour. They can ship refined products and chemicals just as easy as oil. ( And the cost of producing oil in these coutnries is a fraction of the North Sea ).

The workers at Grangemouth are, according to their Union, refusing to be bullied.

Ineos may therefore decide that losing £10 million a month is too high a price to pay for Scottish trade unionists.

The loss to Scotland's process industries, except Whisky and the very little North Sea construction that isn't already over seas, will be total.

Its hard to see how the UK governemnt could step in, especially as it didn't for Coryton. However it might be Alex Salmonds last role of the dice argument for an independent Scotland.

Remember the campaigns over Ravenscraig - the SNP could finess this to swing the indepenedce argument.

However, since the Chinese state is a major shareholder in Gramngemouth and will not want to undermine the long term relationship it is building with the UK they could force Ineos to back down.

High stakes poker.