LABOUR'S RESPONSE to the closure of the Ravenscraig steel works in Scotland, voiced through the mouthpiece of spokesperson for Trade and Industry Gordon Brown on TV AM, epitomised Labour's scabbing on Scottish workers. In the event of Labour winning the general electon, he said, the new government would not intervene to save the works from ciosure.
British Steel's decision to shut down the Scottish steel industry will lose 1,220 jobs by September, but is estimated to indirectly resuit in the loss of some 13,000 jobs. Even the Tories furious that BS has reneged on its promise to keep Ravenscraig open until 1994.
The immediate political effect of Anestet cr tho lan Lang the Soo ei thie is to throw the Tories into ( Secretary, is under pressure to resigo Party and the Liberal Democrats. The nine Tory MPs, out of Scotland's 72. must also be sweating over the poltcal aftermath of Ravenscraig.
Major's response has been to defend BS's right to take decisions based on market conditions. to datend the beleaguered lan Lang, and to offer workers in Lanarkshire a E50 milion Jan. 18, 1992 No. 14 Donald Dewar enterprise zone to 'rebuild" the local economy - and even this is spread over ten years.
But the emerging dispute between ie brusn covernmer ano whe cv in Brussels over regional aid, could well block even this maast carrot. The -t Commission has already blocked some {100 million in ec tunds originally intended to help former coal mining areas crisis in the steel industry is particulari imoortant. in the classical manus! sense it is qute simply a crisis of overproduction. ( The European steel inustry is estimated to face an overapacity of some 20 per cent. it faces
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