Made the mistake of leaving the car during a holiday and came back to a nearly flat battery which promptly set the alarm off when I tried to start it. Stopped it with the square blipper and put the battery on trickle charge overnight.

Popped it back in tonight (I need smaller hands!) and the car starts and runs fine (Yay!) BUT the remote central locking isn't working nor the blipper for the alarm. The little red light on the steering cowl is on permenantly too.

Any suggestions? I've tried manual locking and unlocking combinations as above, the car till starts and runs and I've got all the blippers/keys

The blippers I have are rectangular with a single rubber button, a FIAT logo and small red light.

Not sure if it will help you as ive got the meta alarm but i had to press the remote with the ignition switched on to stop the led flashing after going off but never had issues with remote locking
im sure somebody who knows will be on here soon though
hope you get it sorted

If the alarm indicator light on the dash is permanently on, that doesn't sound usual.

I'd suggest disconnecting the battery for a while and then beginning again.

Verify that the central locking operates with the physical keys in both doorlocks first, then move on to the remote fob operation and alarm activation and deactivation.

The infrared remote fobs can be a bit finicky and may require a few presses before resyncing.

Hmm...no joy yet.

What the difference between the light on the steering cowl and the one on the switch panel?

Also, more oddness, the manual boot lock doesn't appear to want to work either, it will only release from inside...

I don't know about a light on the steering column cowl. Perhaps an aftermarket system has been fitted?

It does sound like this is an aftermarket unit. There is no light on the cowl for any UK Fiat fitted alarm. Do you have a pic of the remote?

The light and the fob.

If the weather tomorrow is okay I'll check under the bonnet for random alarms

Does anyone recognise this alarm system?

I'm tempted to unhook the battery again to try and reset it but I'm wary as this is how it got buggered in the first place.

Looks like a Scorpion system, but not 918 that is normally fitted, more like 915 since remote fob has only one button (not the "panic" button that the 918 has).

The red LED was normally placed near the gear stick on the centre console (the other side to where the "coin holder" or roof switch is) rather than up on the steering column cowling, so it could be that it did not start life as a normal UK market car with the 918 fitted at point of import.