Mounting fury as the Observer is sold while its staff strike

No-one can accuse Guardian News and Media executives of lacking drama. On Thursday night – with a 48-hour strike against the deal still ongoing outside its offices – they approved “in principle” the sale of the Observer to loss-making news startup Tortoise.

Guardian and Observer staff were told in an all-hands email on Friday morning that the Scott Trust, which governs both papers but which has its guiding principle to ensure only the financial and editorial independence of the former, had approved the deal. Partners at Tortoise have been called in to a meeting later on Friday, as have Observer hacks, newly returned from their industrial action.

A union meeting will follow soon afterwards: a mandatory chapel meeting for the Guardian and Observer’s unions was called for 1.30pm, with more strike action guaranteed to be discussed.

Both the sale and its timing have provoked further fury among the newsrooms of both the Guardian and the Observer, where employees of both papers had expressed misgivings about the financial viability of Tortoise as a buyer, and who wanted Guardian executives to give other offers consideration.

Management, by contrast, cast doubts on some of the other deals on the table. Green tycoon Dale Vance had expressed an interest in buying the Observer and protecting its independence, but reportedly had not tabled a serious offer. Industry watchers raised eyes at a second supposed counter-offer – with more money on the table, more investment, and a stake for staff – as a potential spoiler that would be withdrawn once the threat of Tortoise receded, especially given no-one would put their name to it.

The question now is what the sale ends up looking like, and how many Observer staff make the leap across to Tortoise with their 233-year-old newspaper. The Scott Trust is going to remain a minority owner of the Observer – meaning that it faces a whole new round of rows in a few years, should the new Tortoise/Observer effort fail – but staff have the option of taking generous voluntary redundancy rather than moving.

The union may yet fight for staff to have the right to stay with the Guardian, though some within the bloc are also calling on a vote of no confidence in editor-in-chief Kath Viner personally (the union has already voted no confidence in the Scott Trust as a whole).

Perhaps the whole thing will look like needless antagonism in a few years: the Observer gives Tortoise a storied brand around which to build – and could finally give the paper its first website. But for now, the midwinter mood in King’s Place is bleak.

It’s an appropriate season for the deal to close, after all, bringing to mind the famous advice given to the journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, occasionally recalled to one another by Guardian staffers: “Never work for a liberal. They’ll give you the sack on Christmas Eve.”