The expression ‘British jobs for British workers’ is quite simply laughable. The biggest hole in the current argument involving contractors at the Lindsey Oil Refinery in North Lincolnshire is that they are not British jobs at all, in fact they are French. French jobs that have been won, fair and square, by an Italian contractor who has every right to employ whoever it wants. Being British does not entitle anyone to work or special treatment within the EU. Again, they are not ‘British Jobs’ and the locality of an employer in relation to ones abode carries with it no obligation. Moreover, the benefits of EU membership has been carrying our economy for years, which is why the comforting and mythical idea of the British job and the British worker is as laughable is it is ludicrous.
When Clement Attlee created the National Coal Board after the war, he did so with no real intention of creating British jobs. It was just assumed that the coal would continue to be mined by the same communities as it always had. So when Margret Thatcher’s Conservative government closed the coal mines in the early 80s, preferring instead to rely on a cheaper imported product, the communities that had done the work previously had a fair claim to a British job. This is where the double standards start to emerge, and it doesn’t take the brains of an English craftsmen to know who is behind it either.
So what we’re really talking about is British jobs for British workers, just as long as it’s economically viable and certain other considerations are taken into account. Oh, and it helps if the media are on your side. Which is why striking miners spent two whole years fighting the media and the Government for real British jobs, and the argument for non British jobs was settled in a week. Shameful.
And since when has the tabloid press been a supporter of the striking worker? The swap from ‘The enemy within’ to ‘The honest working lads’ has been an overnight sensation, literally. The Daily Mail supporting Trade Unionism, who would have thought it? Strange times indeed, or an alternative agenda at play? Given the press and their historical attitude towards industrial action, it’s a little difficult to reconcile the cosy relationship that has developed without pointing to a common denominator. Foreigners.
Amazingly, they do have trades in other countries. Maybe they don’t aspire to the same level of craftsmanship that built our proud empire, but they probably get by with enough skills to build everything the British do, but somehow far better. Further still, we don’t have a problem with foreign children making our trainers in sweatshops for practically nothing do we? The reason being that it suits the economics of our vanity and is somehow justified by being a luxury item. This where the ‘British jobs for British workers’ argument finally crashes and burns.
And please don’t try and tell me that this isn’t a race issue when the idiocy that is the BNP are using it as their latest nationalist soundbite, and they’re not racist are they? Nick Griffin says so. ‘British jobs for British workers’ is a logical progression from ‘Jobs for whites’, only slightly more politically correct. It’s a shame that the working lads couldn’t have made their voice heard without appealing to the current zeitgeist of nationalism in the same manner as the pro Israel lobby.
It’s just all to easy. The flag, the aggressive rhetorical questioning and blatant ugliness of misguided British superiority. Things are changing, and sitting around watching Jeremy Clarkson tell you otherwise only reinforces the underpinning concept of this entire argument. We’re just not the country we used to be.