Brian Leishman: The Labour MP who has become one of the government's most vocal critics

Brian Leishman has had quite the introduction to life as an MP. Elected to represent Alloa and Grangemouth in July, he has frequently questioned the government in the last eight months over the closure of Scotland’s only oil refinery.  

Walking up to his parliamentary office from Portcullis House, it doesn’t take long for Grangemouth to come up. As we ascend flights of stairs, he says his days are filled with meetings and parliamentary business related to the refinery, which is set to close this summer. His handling of the issue has quickly built a reputation as a strong politician who is unafraid to criticise his own party. 

Westminster is a far cry from where he was five years ago, and it’s fair to say life has changed considerably since the pandemic. 

Living all his life four miles away from Perth in the small village of Almondbank, most of his life has revolved in some part around sports. His parents were teachers, although they didn’t teach at his school, St Columba’s. He suggests that was probably a good thing and that education wasn’t for him.  
Growing up, Leishman’s passions were football and golf. He remembers getting his first set of golf clubs at 11 as a Christmas present and his dad being chucked off the golf course on Christmas Day by the park ranger, but from then on, he was hooked. He would spend most of his time down at his local golf club practicing and keeping himself out of trouble because he feared his dad would take the clubs away from him.  

“I did okay at school, but I’ll be honest, I wasn’t the most focused. There were certain subjects that I really liked, such as modern studies, history, and PE, but it just wasn’t for me.  

“I went to the University of Stirling to study history and politics. It lasted six weeks. I made the mistake of not moving through, I was getting up at ridiculous times to get a bus from the countryside into Perth, then a train to Stirling and then another bus to Bridge of Allan.  

“I remember handing my first bit of work in for my first tutorial and going back to speak to my tutor 20 minutes later to tell him not to bother reading it because it was mince. My heart just wasn’t in it. I told my son, who is coming up for 20 and is studying at Abertay, not to make the same mistake, to go and immerse himself.” 

I ask more about his family – he’s married and has a son – but he’s uncomfortable talking in depth about them because of the “toxic abuse” he has been receiving on social media recently.  

“I don’t want to put them in any situation they don’t need to be in. I’ve had to tell my wife and my son not to look at my Twitter and Facebook because some of the stuff I receive is just horrible.” 

Before his involvement in elected politics, Leishman was a golf professional for 20 years. “I packed in university on the Friday and turned pro on the Monday,” he says fondly.  

He began a three-year training programme, which didn’t just involve honing his golfing skills, he was learning business management, repair work, sports science, tournament organisation, and golf coaching.  

“In the beginning, I wanted to be a full-time player. I was asked when coaching some years later how that went, the answer was pretty obvious having just watched them top it, duff it, and shank it for the last 40 minutes.  

“I wasn’t good enough and I found out quickly there are levels to the professional game. I was like a junior-level Scottish football team playing against Real Madrid, and I realised that I wasn’t going to make a living from tournament golf.” 

His job took him to work at one of the world’s most prestigious golf courses, Gleneagles, and he coached some A-list celebrities such as John Travolta, Gerard Butler and Shakira. But the golfing period of his life “is done now”, Leishman says, and after doing it for over 20 years, he says he felt “a bit scunnered” with the game “probably because I wasn’t good enough”.  

He began to pivot to politics, joining the Labour Party in 2016 having been a lifelong voter and supporter. 

“It’s always seemed like the right party” despite having “not grown up in a Labour household”, he says. 

“I don’t think people join parties because of a person. But at that time Jeremy [Corbyn] was the leader and that’s pretty much where I identify myself. If you want to pigeonhole me, I’m a democratic socialist. The party at that time, like Harold Wilson said, was a moral crusade and he galvanised the membership in such a way that I don’t think I’ve seen many political parties do in Europe for a long time. 

“I loved what he was saying, and I loved where the party was, so I thought that was the time to join.”  

Leishman was elected to the Perth and Kinross Council in 2022. He says he made the decision to run because while his area is not a Labour heartland, he didn’t want to see paper candidates on the ballot. 

“I didn’t want that to be the case, and decided I fancied it. I was elected with the smallest majority that election.” 

Just two years later he was elected to Westminster. “It’s been a bit of a journey and a quick one,” he says. A lot has changed in his party since he became a member and, in the last eight months, he has become a critical voice from the backbenches.  

“When we analyse our first eight months in government our report card says we must do better. Undoubtedly the party has changed. We were fiercely anti-austerity, which is absolutely my politics, and I think where the party should be, but now we have rumours of welfare cuts.” 

At the time of the interview, reports suggested that UK ministers were prepared to freeze personal independent payments (Pip). The Resolution Foundation think tank warned that raising the qualifying threshold for support could mean about 620,000 could be affected. This transpired not to be case, instead the government  said it will review the Pip assessment. It did however announce a raft of reforms – which have been deeply unpopular with some Labour Party members – that it claims will save the public purse £5bn. Leishman has been one of those dissenting voices on the welfare cuts and says they are “a ridiculous notion”. “There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that these cuts are going to impoverish already vulnerable, disadvantaged people living in our society today. These are the people that we should be throwing our arms around and helping. 

“It’s a measurement of any society how the government treats those who are in need, and by cutting that much from the welfare budget there is no doubt in my mind that we cannot claim there is no austerity under Labour if we are going to cut that much money from welfare. 

“It’s a ridiculous notion to think that we can incentivise people who cannot work into work. It shows a basic lack of humanity and it’s wrong. There are so many people that unfortunately cannot work, they need to be looked after.”  

He says some of the decisions made by the Labour government have been “upsetting” from the “point of view that I don’t want the party to be like that”.  

“I want the Labour Party to stand up to its values of social justice, fairness and equality, and making things better the many in society. So, it’s been upsetting but it’s the right thing to do [to speak against it].” 

Leishman’s politics do not align perfectly with some of those in the government. He tells me that he has joined the parliament’s Socialist Campaign Group, which held a lot of sway when Corbyn was the leader of the party. Its membership is now down to just 30 MPs and is a clear example of how the party has changed since Corbyn was leader. He has been calling for a tax on Britain’s multimillionaires and billionaires, arguing that the increasing gulf between the richest and the poorest in the UK “is destroying our country”.  

He is critical of Universal Credit and says, “because we have so many people on it now” the payment “is not covering the basic essentials that are required to live”. “That is no measurement of one of the biggest economies in the world,” he says. Leishman is keen to see the welfare system reformed but is steadfast in his belief that it should not “be at the expense of the most vulnerable”. 

“What I am campaigning for down here is a two per cent annual welfare tax on those who have £10m and above in assets. That will raise £24bn annually. There needs to be an equalisation of capital gains tax. People with that much money should be taxed at least the same on their wages as on their assets.  

“Redistributing that wealth is how we close the socio-economic gap in our society today. Because after 14 years of austerity under the Conservatives, what we have seen is our public services hammered, our NHS hammered, as well as in a Scottish context, our education system has deteriorated, and the further education system is on its knees. This kind of wealth redistribution is the only way we’ll address inequality. I’ll borrow a phrase from 2016 – we have got to reorganise society.” 

It’s a topic that fires up Leishman. “We have seen a total erosion of the middle class,” he goes on to say, and points to the generation of people in their 20s “who will never get on the property ladder”.  

He tells me he doesn’t like the term ‘cost-of-living crisis’, and thinks it’s better described as a “cost-of-greed” crisis. “We have seen corporations and multimillionaires race away off the back of the cost-of-living crisis and during the pandemic.” 

While becoming an MP hasn’t changed his views on the socio-economic gap, he says the scale of the problem has been brought into sharper focus as his inbox has shown him “exactly how many people are struggling”. We can’t wait for the government to deliver economic growth, “people need help now”, he says.

He believes the next four years of the Labour government will be judged on living standards and tackling the rise of the far-right. It’s the same solution for both issues, Leishman argues.  
“It’s not by moving further right ourselves, we beat them by tackling societal inequality and making people better off. 

“Reform is a distraction for people who are struggling or disillusioned. Blaming certain groups of people is a total distraction, and the notion that they are on the side of working people is wrong. We were voting on the Employment Rights Bill yesterday, did they vote for it? No.  

“They consistently don’t turn up for debates or speak against workers’ rights. They are not the answer for the people who are struggling in society today.”

He is clear that he is not criticising people who are now leaning towards Reform, suggesting “they are disillusioned, and they despair of politicians that don’t tell the truth and dance around questions”. 

He points to the recent council by-election in Bannockburn, which is in the constituency next to his. The turnout was 17 per cent. “People are scunnered, and that’s why no matter how long my career lasts, I want to have a body of work that I can be proud of and that represents my politics,” he says.  

It’s not taken Leishman long to build a strong body of work that reflects who he is. On top of his campaigning for a fairer redistribution of wealth, he has had a crucial constituency matter to deal with that has been pressing since day one: the closure of the Grangemouth oil refinery. 

The facility entered its centenary year in 2024. However, it was not celebrated – its owner, Petroineos, confirmed in September that it would cease operations this summer. The news had been touted for almost a year before the announcement after it reported major losses. Approximately 435 workers are expected to be made redundant as the site transitions to a fuel import depot. Only 65 jobs are set to be retained and there are deep concerns that the broader economic impact could extend to thousands, affecting contractors and local businesses reliant on the refinery’s operations. 

It’s a bleak outlook for the town but it’s a battle that Leishman had been ready to take on from the moment he was elected, using much of his maiden speech to talk about how the plant can be saved. Since then, however, he has become increasingly frustrated with figures in his party over what he sees as their lack of action to save the jobs.  

Leishman says there are “striking parallels” between the closure of Ravenscraig steelworks in 1992 and the closure of the mines in the 1980s. 

“Look at the other side of my constituency, which was full of heavy industry and mines, there were massive socio-economic consequences, not just with the mines, but the mills in Tillicoultry and Alva, the brewing in Alloa. When the industry left those towns so did the wealth, health and prosperity.”

After some workers were sent redundancy letters in February, Leishman said he was angry at a multitude of actors “but primarily at my own government”. 

While he says he has “some sympathy” for ministers because it is a problem they inherited, “it’s on our desk now, and we were hesitant”. “The Tories turned their back on Grangemouth, they didn’t want to know, and they were quite happy with private capital, through Jim Ratcliffe [the owner of Petroineos], to have its way with the site, while the SNP knew about the closure for three years,” he says.  

Last week, Project Willow, a study commissioned by the Scottish and UK governments to assess future opportunities for the complex, identified nine options to support its long-term future. The feasibility study found projects relating to waste, bio-feedstock and hydrogen would all likely attract private investment and such moves would create 800 jobs by 2040. However, it is estimated that it would need around £3.5bn of capital investment from the private sector and the development of supply chains. 

One week before the announcement, Leishman described the recommendations as “welcome” but said “we need to get going now”. 

And despite Keir Starmer’s announcement last month at the Scottish Labour conference of £200m of funding for the site to support workers being made redundant, he is still unhappy and says that it does not secure the future for all of the people in the town and the local economy. “What about the shared service workers, those working in the laboratories, the emergency services that rely on that refinery? They’re under threat of being made redundant, and it’s only right they see a share of that 18-month package as well,” he says.  

He describes the closure of the site as “the biggest industrial issue in 40 years” and says “it makes me fearful for Scotland”.  

In the lead-up to the general election, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said his party would “step in and save the jobs at the refinery and invest in that transition [to renewable energy]”. Last month, when questioned about why Labour have not saved the jobs, Sarwar cited it was unable to because “it’s a privately owned company that has made this decision”. 

Leishman is critical of Sarwar and told the BBC’s Sunday Show last month when asked what happened to Sarwar’s pledge that he didn’t know. “I want to know,” he added, “because I believed Anas when he said that”. 

He tells Holyrood: “He’s been very quiet on the issue.  
“I’ve been down here and for eight months I have been trying to push it to the top of the agenda. I have managed to move the party a bit on it. But do I think we’ve done enough? No.” 

I ask if he feels alone in his fight for Grangemouth here at Westminster. He tells me he doesn’t want to speak about his colleagues and that they have “their own constituencies, campaigns and fights”. 

“What I would say is our movement is built on international solidarity, and I would try to help anyone out. My colleagues at Holyrood have been very good, for example, Richard Leonard and Monica Lennon have been fantastic in taking the fight into the Scottish Parliament.” 

We sit down to speak two days after Ratcliffe, who is also the majority shareholder in Manchester United Football Club which has debts of £1bn, announced his intention to build a new £2bn football stadium for the club. While Manchester United intends to finance the stadium construction independently, the broader redevelopment plans for the surrounding area involve significant infrastructural enhancements that may require government support, and Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has called for over £200m in government funding. Announcing the plans, Ratcliffe said: “If the government really gets behind this scheme, we will build an iconic football stadium.” 

Leishman has already got in contact with the UK Government regarding its potential involvement in the redevelopment of the area. 

“We are the party of the trade union movement, and basic trade unionism is you negotiate. I have constantly said in the chamber if you look at the £600m loan guarantee for the new site that he [Ratcliffe] has in Antwerp, that the Conservative government rubber stamped, why did we not say you won’t get that loan guarantee unless you keep Grangemouth working. 

“When we look at the regeneration needed around Old Trafford, why would we not say you can have that money, but you need to keep Grangemouth open? That’s just negotiation in my opinion. 

“I have asked those questions of why we haven’t done this, and the answers have been underwhelming.” 

His criticism of the government doesn’t end there. He has been a strong supporter of the Waspi (Women Against State Pension Inequality) women, who launched a legal challenge last week against the government after it rejected calls to pay billions of pounds in compensation for changes to pensions that the group claims they were affected by. 

Leishman agrees that they should be compensated and voted for SNP MP Stephen Flynn’s private members bill which would require the government to publish measures to address the findings of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s report on the injustice against the women affected. 

“It’s a historical injustice, and the women have been victims of injustice. The fact that sticks in my head is that every 13 minutes a Waspi woman passes away. It is the right thing to do. We stood on it in 2019 and I know that was a different election, but that manifesto was costed, it could have been done. And it is just the morally right thing to do.” 

I ask if he’s confident his party will return to the roots that led him to join in 2016. He says he is, adding there “is an awful lot of good people in the Parliamentary Labour Party” as well as grassroots members. He says members up and down the country “want an anti-austerity government” and to be on the side of “people that are impoverished that need our support”.  

He looks back on his first eight months at Westminster and says, “it’s been busy”. That’s an understatement.