Union boss: It's little wonder we've fallen out of love with Labour

THE boss of one of the UK's largest unions has said Labour's handling of Grangemouth has added to members feeling disenfranchised with the party.

- BY HANNAH RODGER

Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union, was defending the decision to remove Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner as a member over the lack of progress on the Birmingham bin worker dispute.

Scottish delegates were among more than 800 members who voted to remove Rayner's membership and to reconsider its affiliation with Labour.

Graham said: "I have real difficulty with what they're doing about Grangemouth and the Lindsey oil refinery, and about oil and gas workers.

"Unite members are a microcosm of society and if you have people in Wales, in Scotland, all of our sectors effectively turning away from Labour, if I were Labour I wouldn't be trying to put up paltry defences to that, I'd be saying, 'What are we getting wrong?".