Is Johnny Foreigner the new Karen Matthews?

Is this the best the Unions can come up with? The current anti-foreign worker hysteria is a route to be avoided at all costs.

The wildcat strikes across the UK are at risk of turning into something much more sinister. With the end of cheap credit revealing the true plight of workers and exposing a rotten system where people are being milked for the benefits of the very few, it is quite clear that a lot of people have had enough.

The danger, however, is that what Madam Miaow calls "the inevitable outpouring of anger" is already being conveniently deflected and channelled against the weakest targets, i.e. fellow victims of the financial crash. Johnny Foreigner is already becoming the new Karen Matthews. But whereas few expected the Unions to get the bull by the horns and tackle head-on the system that lead to the crisis, no one thought they'd so easily go down the route of patriotic gravy trains.

This is why a number of questions are being posed.

1. Like John Cruddas MP wrote in yesterday's Guardian:

"Britain has lost control of key industries and their labour procurement procedures. The Lincolnshire dispute is a small symptom of a big problem. Britain is a country that no longer owns the productive processes that create its wealth. Crucial economic sectors have been handed over to unaccountable foreign ownership".

Britain is reaping the harvest of thirty years of relentless drive towards a 'democracy of the shareholders', to quote an old Thatcherite soundbite. In the specific case of the British oil industry, the moment the assets were privatised and sold off (from 1974 onwards and all through the 80s), the UK Government lost their control, plain and simple. Those who warned against it were branded 'old fashioned', 'stalinists', 'dogmatists', you name it.

That's the reason why little can be done if the oil company Total, or any other private firm, wants to employ whoever they want, if and when they want. As long as they do it legally, it is within their 'free market' rights to do so. It is quite obvious that the free market envisaged by the Daily Mail (The Italian job that proved the final straw for British workers'), the Express ('Jobs Fury') and all the usual suspects is a pick 'n'choose one.

2. Successive British governments have also chosen to second the airy fairy dream of a 'knowledge economy'. In their view, at the first sign of a downturn, manifacturing wasn't worth propping up, with the result that skills were lost, communities torn to shreds and Britain became the country that sold bullshit shares for a living, instead of factual, tangible products. Now the shares aren't worth the paper they were forged on, and people are crying foul.

3. As a former member of T&G, I find it embarrassing that the Trade Unions haven't been able to challenge the political trend over more substantial matters other than the hollow "British Jobs for British Workers". For years, British corporations have been offshoring entire departments to other countries. In 2004, it was estimated that up to 750,000 jobs were shifted from the UK to offshore destinations. What is more harmful to 'British workers', that or the few hundred Italian and Portuguese working at the Lincolnshire refinery for six months?

Yes, Unite may have whispered that the Government should bail out Jaguar, but how effective were their pleas? Theirs was, once again, a rearguard battle. Like The Independent writes today, "[TUC Leader] Mr Barber largely backs the Government's handling of the financial crisis, at a time when many union members would like to see him battle to guarantee their jobs". Little was done to challenge mass repossessions, or the fact that banks continue to award absurd bonuses and this time courtesy of the taxpayer's money. Why don't they organise strikes urging the Government to spend that money supporting wages instead?

4. This why it's depressing to see the British Unions waking up to back such a divisive and potentially explosive slogan, one that looks like textbook BNP. Compare it to France, where properly organised strikes with up to 2.5 million workers demanded action to protect wages and jobs. The French were asking, for instance, where the 360bn euro shore-up fund to guarantee banks came from. Unlike the UK walkouts, they weren't striking against "foreign labour", the "victimisation of the French worker" and "Put French Workers First". There were no jingoistic tones whatsoever.

5. This blog has raised the point repeatedly here, here and here. Britain's relationship with all things foreign is a deeply fucked-up one, perhaps the direct consequence of centuries of colonialism. The Lincolnshire protest is quickly turning into fodder for anti-French rhetoric, as well as anger aimed at 'wops' and 'johnny foreigners'. Or, the spine-tinglingly ignorant 'they all wanna come here cuz they get everything for free'.

How can the hate merchants bang on about economic nationalism and 'British Jobs for British Workers' when there are hundreds of thousands of British workers in the EU, some of them Auf Wiedersen Pet- style? On a different level, in the last fifteen years the Brits have literally invaded countries like France and Spain, clogging up their health service, pushing up property prices and distorting the 'market' in significant areas.

This time it's not just the tabloids. The Unions too, alas, are playing with fire and they don't even know it.