MICHAEL CONNARTY, the MP for Linlithgow, speaking on Radio Scotland, didn't miss the striking power workers, who walked off the job in solidarity with their brother trade unionists in Lindsey, and hit the wall. He voiced angry disappointment at what he described as their "chauvinism" in protesting against Portuguese and Italian workers brought to north Lincolnshire by an Italian company contracted to Total, the international oil company.
I admired his guts for saying what he really thought. Many of his colleagues, including the Minister for Employment, Pat McFadden, were hiding behind weasel words and promises to investigate whether any employment laws had been broken, but my admira
tion for Michael Connarty's honesty stopped short of agreement with his conclusion.
The strikers' slogan – British jobs for British workers – was coined not by the BNP but by Prime Minister Gordon Brown when he was focused on proving he is British not Scottish, and that true Brits come in many skin colours and from all corners of the globe.
True to form, he didn't really spell out his philosophy, he left himself wriggle room. He didn't say bluntly that skin colour or Islam are irrelevant to modern national identity as felt by millions of people in Britain, and he didn't acknowledge that many of these "new Brits" whose forebears came from the West Indies or the subcontinent feel English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish, rather than British.
So some people were a little puzzled, others were disappointed, when he appeared to play a narrow, British nationalist card to keep white, working-class voters on side by choosing the British jobs for British workers battle cry, but others were delighted. They believe too many people have come to the UK and settled here, so the PM's words were music to their ears, and some of the anti-immigration brigade in the BNP have been in evidence on the picket lines.
It would appear from the comments of their trade union officials and their unofficial shop-floor leaders that the BNP and Michael Connarty haven't read their lips. The strikers don't object to the Italian and Portuguese workers because of their nationality, but they do object to a company hiring them for lower wages and poorer conditions than British workers would be paid.
There's another reason why Lincolnshire workers feel so threatened by workers from the Continent at this time. For years there's been an acceptance of the EU's treaty obligation on every member state to sign up to the common market and the free movement of capital and labour, goods and services, but right now people are scared stiff that the bottom will fall out of their family's future. They're scared about their communities being torn apart because of unemployment.
Good guys like Michael Connarty, fly guys like Pat McFadden and unwise guys like Gordon Brown will do well to listen to the strikers rather than brand them racist. They should also speak urgently to the EU Commission and national political leaders in Europe about building in a mechanism for avoiding the resentment being expressed by strikers trying to ring-fence jobs in their home areas when times are rough, like now.
The right for workers to go from one EU country to another for work could be withdrawn for a given period of time dependent on a country's needs and priorities as determined by its government.
For Lord Mandelson, that is out of the question. In his book, that fundamentally challenges the idea of the free movement of people in the EU.
But what is more likely to drive a wedge between communities than forcing them to conform to rules set by those above them that don't meet their basic needs as distinctive national communities?
Fertility stance is follyJONATHON PORRITT, chairman of the Sustainable Development Commission, says two children are enough for everyone. He says two siblings, over their life-time, will burn carbon equivalent to five acres of woodland, and he says NHS resources should be switched from curing illness to contraception and abortion services, if persuasion doesn't do the trick.
So should advice about infertility treatments be discontinued? And how much carbon is burned by the equipment needed to keep very early, tiny babies alive?
As the Chinese found out from their one-child policy when it was too late, trying to buck nature to this extent creates problems that can't be imagined until they burst upon the demographics of a country, throwing planning, employment and social habits into confusion.
Certainly, use contraception of the variety that accords with your beliefs, but you decide.
