Saturday 31 January 2009

The xenophobia of Gordon Brown

With the wildcat strikes and walkouts by workers at oil and energy plants (which, no doubt, Cameron will soon be comparing to the 1970s) attracting some comment, it is to be hoped that people remember where it came from. It was a speech in 2007 by Gordon Brown with 28 uses of the word 'British' and 51 uses of the word 'Britain' (some of which were part of the phrase 'Great Britain', to be fair), Gordon Brown said:
this is our vision: [...] drawing on the talents of all to create British jobs for British workers.

and
And I want the new green technologies of the future to be the source of British jobs in British businesses.
Jim Murphy, apparently, doesn't agree, he's said
this free movement of labour across Europe is a great thing for Scots and for people throughout Britain

It's absolutely a consequence of Brown's speech:
Speaking on Friday from Wilton, on Teesside, one protester urged the prime minister to take action, saying: "All we want is for Gordon Brown to fulfil his promise. He said British jobs for British workers."
Some of the protesters have been saying that the protest is 'not racist' but is about foreign labour undercutting domestic workers in wage costs. I disagree - it is racist, otherwise the protest would be about the wages being paid rather than about who they were being paid to. It's a xenophobic protest and it's directly attributable to Gordon Brown's encouragement of British isolationism, done as some kind of signal to the mythical 'Middle England' (come, Frodo, vote Labour) that he's not some crazy Jock with a Braveheart attitude - with a side order of 'dish-the-Nats-back-home' for good measure.

Is this truly worth a few political points Mr Brown?

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