ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

Right-wing commentators rejoice at Lindsey strikers' victory

The strikers at the Lindsey Oil Refinery have won 102 more jobs for local people.  Janet Daley and John Redwood are delighted:

Janet Daley: "I wonder if those local people in Lincolnshire will be willing to forget how the political leaders of their country traduced them when all that they were demanding was a fair opportunity to earn a living? For that egregious sin, they were smeared with the charge of "xenophobia", accused of being benighted bigots who failed to welcome foreigners into their midst, and generally pilloried as the reactionary scum of the globalised earth. Any politician (or media commentator) who dared to express sympathy for them was attacked as "populist", "opportunist" or worse. And most of this abuse was being hurled by people on the Left."

John Redwood MP: "I do support free trade, and I don’t think strikes are a good way of resolving disputes. Yet I do take my hat off the strikers this morning who highlighted the manifest injustice of EU law, and have won the concessions of some jobs for locals."

Meanwhile Nigel Farage MEP is using the controversy to make the case for leaving the EU.

The Right is hugely confused by this issue. Concern for British workers is tempered by concern at wildcat industrial action. Belief in free trade is offset by scepticism about the fairness of the European Union's single market. This story will run and run as the recession deepens and will be a new test for the party's attitude to capitalism.

Tim Montgomerie

2.15pm Comment from Charles Tannock MEP: "UK MEPs have always supported the "posting of workers directive" and the proposed "services directive" precisely to allow UK firms to compete for contracts in the single market, and vice-versa. Of course ideally a number of these workers will be recruited in the receiving host member state particulalrly if they have the requisite skills and the pay de,manded is reasonable but this cannot be mandatory as it defeats the whole object of the single market, which involves open competition. Its funny when I posted a while back on ConHome criticising the idea of free and totally unfettered trade globally I was lambasted as a quasi socialist by some of the same types who now defend excluding EU companies with their acompanying short term contracted staff from bidding for contracts in the UK. Sometimes people are so blinded by their hatred of the EU they will ditch all their previously sacred economic principles, and that goes for UKIP which claims to be a global free trade party." Originally here.

British jobs for Italian workers today but there'll be Italian jobs for British workers tomorrow

Eighteen months ago Gordon Brown promised British jobs for British workers - a slogan we learnt had also been used by the BNP.  Yesterday that phrase was used in anger against him as British workers saw 400 largely Italian employees of an Italian contractor recruited to build an extension to the Lindsay Oil Refinery in Lincolnshire.  The Sun identifies fourteen wildcat strikes in support of action taken by Lindsay's British workers.

Billy Bones (a great name that could have come from the 1970s) - a pipefitter at the Lindsey refinery and union official - told the FT: “I would not be surprised if by Monday afternoon the whole construction industry nationwide is out. We’ve got our backs against the wall.  This has been brewing for years. We have the skills to do the jobs but are not getting them.”

Yesterday in Davos, David Cameron was quick to criticise Gordon Brown for using the British workers phrase:

"There are legitimate questions to be asked of this company.  If it is disqualifying British workers from applying for jobs, then that is illegal. But the Prime Minister should never have used that slogan. On the one hand he lectures everyone about globalisation and on the other he borrows this slogan from the BNP. He has been taking people for fools and has been found out."

Labour's double failure to (1) control immigration from outside the EU and (2) to reskill British workers during better times means that there are no easy solutions to this crisis.  EU law protects the right of nationals from member states to work here.  Over at CentreRight, Peter Whittle believes that we should strongly support the protestors.  It's a temptation but one we should resist.  Conservatives should not tolerate illegal strikes and, more strategically, we should argue for the long-term benefits of open markets even when they conflict with immediate British interests.  That will often be a very tough argument to make but there will be many other times when UK workers - not least in the financial services sector - benefit from our free access to other markets.

The bigger message we need to get across - at a time when Barack Obama is making protectionist noises - is that a retreat from free trade is the surest way to turn today's recession into tomorrow's depression.  Some Tory talk of buying locally is close to a form of economic isolationism.

Tim Montgomerie

The right and wrong ways to attack Labour

CCHQ has just released a very good briefing on how Labour is lurching to the left.  The briefing (a pdf of which is here) notes how Labour is giving more and more favours to their union paymasters (also see The Times). It also details 'lurches to the left' including higher taxes, ending of the fiscal rules, nationalising Northern Rock, the Agency Workers Directive and restricting the freedom of Academy schools.

This substantive criticism of Brown is the right way to go forward.  For the reasons highlighted by Nadine Dorries MP we must avoid personal attacks on Brown.

The return of secondary picketing

Up until now we haven't had a category dedicated to industrial relations but we've decided we are going to need it.  Union militancy is back and in the public sector.  Eric Pickles MP has just released a press statement noting the return of secondary picketing:

The UNISON’s official strike blog reports: “Tewkesbury - Successful picket again today GMB and non members refusing to cross picket line. Management accusing GMB of secondary picketing yesterday and threatening to bring police in today to clear highway! Depot closed again today.”

Eric Pickles MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Communities & Local Government, said: “Like a rerun of Life on Mars, under Gordon Brown the country seems to be returning to the bad old days of the 1970s. The prospect of a return of secondary picketing is an ominous development. With the rubbish piling up in the street and essential public services closed, this is deeply worrying for hard pressed council taxpayers."

As George Bridges has already argued, the unions may be the most effective unofficial opposition to the next Conservative government's ambitions.