UKIP must be rubbing their hands as Hague drives away the voters
Dear William Hague,
Like many people within the Conservative Party, I have a huge amount of respect for you. Your quick wit and sharp mind are an important asset for us and will be for several years to come. Sadly, on this one occasion, I must take issue with you on your stance regarding the ‘wildcat strikes’ at the Lindsey oil refinery. Although I appreciate that you and the rest of the Shadow Cabinet are desperate not to get pulled into a discussion about Europe for fear of the consequences, your inaction will cause just as much damage as action.
On the Andrew Marr show yesterday, you said that ”strikes are never the way forward”, a sentiment that I broadly agree with. Naturally, you couldn’t resist the chance to have a dig at Gordon Brown about the legendary “British jobs for British workers” quote but I’m pretty sure that everyone now agrees it was “unbelievably ridiculous and silly”. What really caught my eye was your assertion that the Conservatives would be against restricting the free movement of workers within the EU as it was an aspect of the single market that you “strongly support”. With those words, you could almost hear the pitter-patter of thousands of feet as voters decided to leave the Conservative camp and join UKIP instead. You’ve already promised a referendum on the Lison Treaty after months of procrastinating on the subject, but on your next big test of the Conservative Party’s plans for the EU you came crashing down. Frank Field MP and Derek Simpson of Unite (a man I wouldn’t normally find myself agreeing with) have both voiced their outrage that British workers are being specifically excluded from working on UK-based contracts by European contractors. Surely at the very least, you could have condemned this discriminatory practice and made it clear that the Conservatives would deal with this issue should they win power. It would be very dangerous for Labour to support this practice, meaning that you would be one step ahead of the government, and voters would see that you understand their plight.
What I find frustrating about the discussion about immigration is that people seem to have forgotten what immigration is all about. This country produces a lot of skilled labour (although not as much as it should, admittedly). Even so, we still have a lot of unfilled jobs that we need foreign workers to fill. It is, therefore, highly beneficial for this country to fill vacancies with workers from abroad if we are unable to fill those vacancies ourselves. Hopefully you agree with me so far. However, it is not highly beneficial for foreign labour to fill jobs that British workers are more than capable of filling because foreign firms discriminate against British workers (who are presumably more expensive) and instead opt to ship in hordes of foreign workers from poorer countries to save themselves a few quid. From the point of view of social cohesion, corporate social responsibility, the UK economy, our welfare system and goodness knows what else, this situation is not tolerable. If you believe in a common market and freedom of labour movement, so be it – but how can you stand by with this discrimination taking place in our own country and do nothing? I believe goods should move freely within Europe, which is the surely the primary goal of the common market, but for British workers to be driven out because they need to earn enough to feed families and pay their rent in this country is an appalling state of affairs.
I appreciate that party politics has been the key driving force behind the Conservative Party’s stance on Europe. You don’t want to be dragged into a debate about the EU and end up being branded ‘racist’. That said, the European elections in June will test the will of the public towards the EU and I think you are in for an unpleasant surprise. My position has been and will always be that if we were outside the EU with a free trade agreement in place, we could gain from the free movement of goods within the EU but not have to worry about the economic and social burden that it places on us, meaning that we could get foreign labour in the UK if and when we needed it. UKIP must be rubbing their hands at the Conservative Party’s limp stance on these strikes and their failure to empathise and support the public. There is nothing racist about wanting what’s best for this country and the Conservatives would do well to remember that.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
Witanagemot Blogs
Why is it so many Tories claim to be free market advocates who would ever dream of supporting laws that interrupt the free movement of goods and services across international boarders. But when it comes to laws that hamper the free movement of workers who produce those goods and services too many conservatives today abandon their free market principles in favour of reactionary populism. And its not just an issue about the EU, its commonwealth workers too.
“With those words, you could almost hear the pitter-patter of thousands of feet as voters decided to leave the Conservative camp and join UKIP instead.”
Or other parties….
I think you have misread this. The grumbling is about unemployment – the Total thing and the EU tag is just a convenient lever. I suspect that most voters get the EU, just as they understand they will have to pay for Gordon’s incompetence.
British workers are being specifically excluded from working on UK-based contracts by European contractors
But they are not.
West Brom Blogger has it right: it’s amazing how quickly “Tories” abandon their free-market principles (which make all Britons richer) as soon as a bit of foreigner bashing is available. The single market was fashioned by Mrs T for benign purposes. It is the only bit of the EU which is worth having. Are you proposing that the only good bit of the EU is dismantled just because ONE contractor lost a contract to a more competitive quote?
I find myself agreeing with Brown and Mandelson and not with “Tories” who are just itching to throw all the foreigners out.
As I have said elsewhere, while I am rabidly anti-EU, I can also see that international labour mobility is probably a good thing.
The issue that we in the UK can address (within or without the EU) is the problem of means testing. If we had a CBI/flat tax scheme, then it’s far more likely that UK-resident people would be taking up those jobs.
Oh, and scrap the bloody National Minimum Wage while you’re at it.
“But they are not.”
As we’ve seen on the continent, sometimes it doesn’t matter what the facts are – if people feel they have had enough and want to protest, they will! Alastair is right – it’s more a case of a lot of things coming to a head.
Has anyone read Max Hasting’s column in CiF this morning?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/02/hastings-max-recession
Some harsh times ahead, I fear.
Yes Blue Eyes me too.
But if as the Unions (and LFAT) claim, there are widespread cases where employers across the country are telling British workers they need not apply for jobs (a claim I am sceptical of, especially given the government’s rules on advertising vacancies), then workers and unions should pursue their claims through the courts with recourse to European and British law and I would whole heatedly support them in that.
WBB, I never said I was a free market advocate. I am pro-market, but not free market. I also never said this problem was necessarily widespread. If Britain is unable to compete on fair grounds, something is very wrong. I wasn’t asking Hague to destroy the common market, I was asking him to take a firmer stance and make sure (at the very least) that any discrimination of this sort is stopped immediately, yet even that wasn’t on his agenda.
Alastair, I don’t think unemployment is the issue here seeing as no British worker is being made redundant. TOTAL are creating new jobs, not replacing current ones.
BE, I have never supported the free movement of labour. Goods should be able to move across boundaries freely, but labour is a very different matter. As I explicitly said in my letter, foreign labour is essential to this country and I would never want to stop it. However, having uncontrolled immigration is utter nonsense. We should draw in skilled labour from abroad if and when we need it through a work permit system, something which I believe Frank Field advocates. You call it “foreigner bashing” – I call it common sense.
It wasn’t you in particular that was aimed at LFAT but Tories in general.
Mark, BE, WBB, your right IMHO.
LFAT:
“I call it common sense”.
I call it labour fallacy, the idea that there are a fixed number of jobs and that Britains lose out. Its been disproved. Workers not only take jobs, they also create jobs through increased demand.
“If Britain is unable to compete on fair grounds, something is very wrong”.
That is true. And according to the Times these workers are being paid the same at their British counterparts so it can only come down to skills or discrimination based on race, and as we know thats illegal.
This isn’t a real issue, it’s a totemic one, where people bring their own predispositions to it – if its loathing of the EU then people moan about that, if it’s immigration then people can moan about that, if it’s the lack of legal secondary strikes then people can moan about that and if it’s about foreign ownership of UK power generation then people can moan about that too.
The EU/immigration thing is tricky – I heard on Radio 4 this morning that the Commission had hoped that by now we’d not view other Europeons as ‘foreign’ foreigners but rather as Euro-bretheren. That clearly failed but so too did the UK political class – they failed to explain the good aspects of the EU, the benefits of free movement of goods and of labour during the good times and now reap the anger of misunderstanding in the bad times. If there’s a real issue here I’d argue its one of education, both of the public about the EU and of workers in general with regards to skills that would get them jobs which will last – not roadsweeping on the public sector for the duration of the downturn.
[...] You can read his full letter here [...]
“That clearly failed but so too did the UK political class – they failed to explain the good aspects of the EU, the benefits of free movement of goods and of labour during the good times”
Perhaps they thought that people would be able to work that out for themselves? What with the cheap goods, cheap continental travel, holiday destinations, etc…?
Yeah, they may have thought that but never bothered to challenge the constant anti-EU narrative from their friends in the press. For the past 15 years all people have heard about Europe is either crass ‘woo yay us! from the beeb or ‘evil beaurocrats ban bendy bannas!’ from the Mail & co. The Tories with their trenchant europhobia, culminating in the birth of UKIP, didn’t help and Labour lacked the courage to stand up to their mates in the Mail and Sun…
it can only come down to skills or discrimination based on race
Or the fact that the company bosses could put together a competitive quote? If it’s discrimination then it’s illegal and should be pursued in the courts – that is the British way. Mandy says there is no evidence of that and in this case I believe him. If it’s skills then who can blame the contractor for wanting to employ the best people for the job? I mean seriously guys…
LFAT you advocate bringing the people in with the right skills then when it happens you go all nationalist. It’s a tough world out there and Britain has got too used to fat times. I am worried that many people in this country think they are owed a living.
“British workers are being specifically excluded from working on UK-based contracts by European contractors”
This term has been bandied around by Brown and his cohorts over the last couple of days – yet there is absolutely no evidence this is the case. Labour is guilty of opportunism of the worst kind in the hope of mitigating an anticipated electoral meltdown.
Labour has resolutely supported the EU directives that allow an Italian contractor to win a contract and fulfil the labour element of it by shipping in its Italian based employees. The cases of “Viking” and “Laval un Partner” where labour was imported in a similar fashion did not spark action by Labour politicians to run off to Europe and request a change of the rules.
All that has happened is Labour has desperately latched on to an unfounded claim of UK workers being excluded from work, giving Labour an opportunity to give the illusion of action and defending British interests. Thus the line is spun repeatedly.
UK contractors bid for the work at Lindsay and lost out in the tender process. Total gave the contract to bidders who appear to have been cheaper. Is Labour planning to advance a directive that means only contractors in a EU host country are allowed to win bids and any other outcome is the exclusion of British workers? It is utter nonsense.
The fact is what has happened has only been made possible by continuing membership of the EU. That is the problem that needs to be addressed. Labour will not address it and is desperately trying to look busy while doing nothing. It is just another deception.
I am sorry but I think LFAT is a truer reflection of the mood of the country than some of the commentators here.
If voters like neither the EU nor globalisation, isn’t it their right to reject one or both through the ballot box. It’s very condescending of people who hearn huge incomes, like the generally likeable, good-natured and talented William Hague, to berate the masses for not wanting to welcome ‘Euro-brethren’ in desperate times like this, but what else are ordinary men and women going to think about the issue of foreign workers.
By the way, isn’t it the case that the Italian workers were hired as a block? Is this what the free movement of labour means? I thought it meant that individual workers apply for jobs, as individuals, in whichever part of the EU they happen to live in.
unemployment is centre stage if you are seeing people around you being made redundant, and you fear you are going to be next. if you don’t get that then you have something in common with Gordon!
The important thing to stipulate is that workers from any part of the EU (while we are forced to remain part of it), must work under the rules of taxation, health and safety, and local restrictions which are in place inthe host country.
Therefore there can only be advantage in employing foreign contractors if
a) They are simply better at doing the job
b) They are willing to work at a lower net wage level (after local taxation) than the workers of the host nation.
The onus would then lie with the host nation to make its own regulatory, tax and H & S rules were such that their own workforce would not be at a competetive disadvantage from the outset.
The problem in the UK is that the cost of living has become so high, that it is harder for the British worker to compete with his southern European counterparts, especially when they do not have to live on the British economy but on a boat where all services are provided.
British workers are angry because they are disadvantaged, in a system where all are told they are equal.
Pagan Pride, I wonder how long that would remain true once people start to see rising costs as a result of protectionism reducing competition?
It’s just another demonstration of the unacceptable grip that a tiny minority of Eurofederalist quislings have over the leadership of the Tory party. The real reason that the Cameroons won’t engage on Europe is that they are terrified of the almost entirely Eurosceptic party membership discovering just how badly they are being betrayed by their own party just because Cameron is in thrall to the execrable, Californian resident, Steve Hilton.
George Osborne has just said on BBC; “Dismantling the single market is not the answer” ( Who said it was ) ? He said; “Striking is not the way to resolve disputes” ( What else can they do to highlight their protest against a law they feel is discriminating against them ) ?, He also said “We need to explain the benefits to British workers of being able to work abroad”. ( I can’t even begin to answer that, it shows a complete lack of understanding or feeling for the problem and a complete lack of social awareness ).
“With those words, you could almost hear the pitter-patter of thousands of feet as voters decided to leave the Conservative camp and join UKIP instead.”
If they’re going to do that, they’ve gone already. UKIP will get fewer votes in 2010 than they got in 2005.
Tony E, that would certainly help level the playing field but surely you’d have to scrap our minimum wage?
Tony Sharp, protectionism can indeed be painful. That said, the costs of it are a lot less tangible than people seeing Italian workers turn up our their doorstep. The economically and politically literate will see protectionism begin to bite, I’m just not sure anyone else will.
Mr Angry, it’s not just their own party they’re worried about – it’s the eurosceptic voters that they cannot afford to lose in June or at the next general election.
Lfat, I am in agreeance with you. The only way to truly look after the country is to ensure that we do not get to the point of riots because some jumped up person says – why not get jobs abroad!! It shows a complete lack of understanding.
I don’t agree with a free movement of labour around the EU. If every country was equal in terms of benefits, healthcare, insurance, wages, cost of living etc. then it would work but with huge differences between the economies in each country this is not a sensible idea. Money earned in this country is much better if it is spent in this country rather than shipped off to Poland where a days UK wage could probably pay for a house!
There’s a report just been released ( BBC again ), from a number of University Don’s who say that families are breaking up and children are not receiving parenting as their parents did as a result of a consumer driven society which compels mothers to work. How does this fit in with sending their dads to Italy, and Conservative Policy to mend family breakdown and “Broken Britain”?
“Someone” needs to do some straight talking !!!
LFAT, on this I agree with you. If the contract was put out to tender and the cheapest was chosen, it follows that the workforce was also cheaper.
Many European Citizens come to the UK to work and send money home because the wages are substantially higher and the cost of living in their home countries are substantially lower.
That makes it more difficult to British workers to compete.
Unfortunately, the strikes are also a culmination of anger about all the other things that are making people angry too.. so they’re not likely to end easily or quickly.
No one I know wants to be in the EU any longer. It takes more than it gives Britons.
No one I know wants to be in the EU any longer. It takes more than it gives Britons.
I’m not a raging anti-European. I am, I think, sceptical per-se about Big Government, foreign, domestic or somewhere in between. I think, charitably, we are at, or have passed, a point where we do in blunt material terms put more into the EU than we get out BUT the EU (well the EU and the Cold War) has delivered a half-century of peace on the continent, which is no mean feat when you consider the wars are revolutions of the 18th and 19th Centuries. No Napoleonic wars, no 1848s, no Crimeas, no Anglo-Irish conflicts (proper, not terrorism), no Great War, no WW2s nothing. Yes, the cold war helped by *forcing* the West to hang together but the EU channelled that into some great co-operation. Like the Common Market, free movement of goods & services and plentiful cheap French booze!
Its always easy in the bad times to round on the things you don’t like and hold them responsible for today’s woes. The Nazi’s did this, famously, with the Jews in Weimar Germany. The simple fact is that the EU isn’t to blame for our economic woes – we are. Us lot who failed to turf out Bliar and co in the last election. Secondary blame goes to bankers, here and in America and then thirdly to us again. Greedy, grasping, avaricious sods that we are – how on Earth did so many people think 120% mortgages could work? The Europeons don’t get a look in except now, when we belatedly look for marginal savings but they *are* marginal – what’s £10bn rebate when we flushed 5 times that on one single bad bank?
Shaun, I don’t hold the EU responsible for anything of the sort. I fundamentally disagree with the principle of handing over control of certain issues – the movement of people in and out of the UK being one such issue. There are, of course, plenty more.
There is no question that in pure financial terms we put in more than we get out (by around £7 billion a year, if memory serves me correctly). In return for that I’d expect something pretty bloody spectacular and I really don’t think that is the case. This incident at the Lindsey oil refinery and the accompanying strikes is merely the voters waking up to what they’ve been signed up to.
“Like the Common Market, free movement of goods & services and plentiful cheap French booze! “
*agrees*
The overarching laws..? Not so much…
“how on Earth did so many people think 120% mortgages could work?”
Because everyone else was doing it?
I dunno £7bn isn’t that much anymore (which is one of my points). Its under 1/7th of what we spanked on Northern Rock which is worth what to us, today, exactly? Then there’s the rest of the bank bailouts which basically are pouring money down the drain (we’ll never see it again, it will never yield a profit compared to outlay and in the end we’ll privatise the banking sector again!) or £30bn or so for Trident plus ongoing costs.
WW2 cost the UK £20,500,000,000 (20.5bn, 1940s rates).
So, at a brutal level, is £7bn a year worth it, in saving *trillions* of pounds of our own expenditure and tens of millions of lives at home and on the continent?
Sue Said:
“LFAT, on this I agree with you. If the contract was put out to tender and the cheapest was chosen, it follows that the workforce was also cheaper”.
Not necessarily. In fact I have yet to see evidence – ie a statement – to confirm that there is any undercutting of British workers’ wages.
Politically, I agree with you. It is playing not only into UKIP’s hands, but it is also sending voters to the likes of the BNP and the NF.
In my heart though I disagree with you. I believe in the free market as a means to make us all better off. If this decision by Total had been made at a time of economic prosperity, it would not have made page 30 of The Sun. We are in grave danger of following the lead of President Obama and slipping into a protectionist frame of mind. This will lead us into a deeper and longer recession.
All of the points you have raised over William Hague’s performance are valid, however, William was being true to his beliefs. It may cost us votes, but we still need more people like him.
The BNP are largely, I think, a busted flush, 12,000 outed members and presumably a cadre of supporters who for whatever reason can’t actually bring themselves to join.
If that leak wasn’t an intelligence job (and bearing in mind the mooted ‘police investigation’/'prosecution’ has gone totally silent I think we can assume that *something* comical went on!) then they are so grotesquely incompetent as to be completely unable to stage a takeover of a country with a population of 60 million. And if it was an intelligence job then its safe to assume that if times get rough and the gloves come off they’ll be propping up the M25 Expansion Project of 2015.
So while they may at worst get an MP or 2 or, better yet, a Euro MP (think about it – if the UK returns a handful of labour and Tory MEPs and the rest as UKIP & BNP, the Europeons may ask *us to leave!) so what? Have that strain of idiocy represented but stop worrying about it! Facists are never going to take over the UK as people here are, at heart, too obstinate, too stubborn and too contrarian to go quietly along that road and if you can’t go quietly, you cant go at all…
Well done. You have passed the initial module in ‘becoming a socialist’.
Next week we’ll examine ‘what can be done to solve these problems’.
LFAT@5.35
Dear esteemed ringmeister.
If the voters havent “fully woken up” they are at least starting to smell the sulphurous EUSSR stench of betrayal and tyrrany coming to a regional government near you.
When the contracts are let for :
Runway extensions… Spain
Severn Barrier…certainly not Bob the builder
Anglian Wash Barrier … as above
Nuclear stations … hardly English Gas
Power grid … Eon from france possibly
Broadband England … Deutsche Post
Aircraft carriers …
etc etc
the seething discontent in England will require the activation of the Constitutional Powers Act.
And that saddens me .
[...] Good old Letters writes to William Hague and takes him to task for driving Tory voters to UKIP with his ‘free movement for workers within the EU’ comments on Andrew Marr. Go Letters! [...]
I voted Conservative at every chance from my 18th birthday (1977), until a Major act of betrayal of our sovereignty was committed in 1992 – the signing of the Maastricht Treaty. Topically, this treaty transferred policy-making on mobility of labour and immigration from member states to the new E.U. (was the E.E.C.), some timed with opt-outs which were all removed when the Lisbon Treaty was signed last year.
Would you believe me if I told you that an estimated 90% of UKIP is ex-Conservative? It must be of that order; I’ve only met a few socialists.
The Lindsey oil refinery story, for us, was the final wake-up call; a clarion to the British public that says “Well, we did warn about this and it’s still not too late to change the situation!” Time will tell whether we will hear the “pitter-patter” of feet rushing toward us, but as long as they don’t go to the BNP…! Agreed?
William Hague is a sharply perceptive and thoroughly entertaining Commons performer, with fairly realistic views on the party’s minefield-issue of the E.U. But with the re-appointment of Ken Clarke, your party’s strongly pro-E.U. agenda has been revealed. We, however, are forecasted to ‘clean up’ on June 4th.
We predict more unrest as the realisation of our loss of sovereignty dawns. It’s been happening for years, just not reported.