It is interesting that there is a bit of a split among the employers and politicians on immigration, with some stirring up anti-immigrant racism to divert anger about jobs towards scapegoats, while others are all for open borders, but – as you point out – only because they want a nice pool of labour to exploit at the lowest possible rates.

Yes, totally agree political context heavily influences mood in these situations. My deli remark was meant to be a dig at the equally offensive stereotypical middle class position on immigration, – “wonderful Polish deli owner, dear little man, and their sausages are to die for” – but that wasn’t really the point intended.

Thing is, the way I see it is that the government care nothing for ideology. It’s all about money and power. So free immigration = a good way for their corporate pals to keep wages at an absolute minimum. From the point of view of people doing the jobs, or losing them, this is rubbish. The cognitive dissonance required to blame the exploitative system itself is sometimes too great, so the foreign workers themselves – pawns in the same game – are blamed. Divide and rule is easy when people are exhausted and ground down by the thankless slog and worried they can’t feed their kids. I’m not convinced racism/xenophobia is the primary impulse, more desperation and “Stop nicking my stuff, I NEED IT”. It’s the bottom of Maslow’s pyramid of needs, fundamental life and death stuff. Any cornered animal will fight the nearest rival. (NB I am emphatically not suggesting British workers are animals. ARGHHHH SOCK IN GOB NOW QUEENIE)

But I think the rising tide of government anti-immigrant rhetoric – not just Brown’s notorious British jobs comment – over the last few years, not to mention the cacophany in the press, has a lot to do with how migrant workers and immigrants generally are perceived these days. When the sodding Labour party gets into it, all that shit gets a new air of respectability. Those bastards have a lot to answer for.

For contrast, there were demonstrations involving more than 100,000 people in Ireland in 2005, sparked by a dispute on Irish Ferries over the EU’s “Bolkestein directive” – bit like the Posted Workers Directive that the Lindsey contract firms are so keen on, but focusing on services…

Anyway, those demos were huge – certainly not just deli-loving fancy pants types. They also involved lots of migrant workers, mainly from Eastern Europe. And they used slogans like this

That’s not to mention the fact that many of the strikers at Lindsey, or people they had worked with, must have been on sites in Germany or wherever, Auf Wiedersehen Pet style…

What I’m saying is very similar groups of workers can see things differently at different times – which way people jump depends on what is going on and the political climate at the time.

It really is impossible to imagine what will happen when critical mass is reached and enough ordinary people think “Hang on… this is all toss, isn’t it? What are we doing propping up this insane status quo?” If indeed they do. The only vague cross-class parallels I can think of are the poll tax riots, or the last huge anti-war march. Neither of which were exactly Madame Guillotine-esque in terms of long lasting effect.

Nope, still the ramble czar. Blah blibble blee.

I mean those “British jobs for British workers” strikes at Lindsey oil refinery and other construction sites scared the daylights out of me in one way, because they were directed against migrant workers from overseas. And that is a horribly dangerous way to go. Like a DIY divide and rule, and a stepping up of racism…

But the flip side is, if they hadn’t had the hideous Britishness thing, they were an example of extremely militant, powerful action, which busted straight through the anti-union laws and – if it had been better directed politically – could have been an example of how to take on the recession induced jobs squeeze. It certainly wasn’t apathetic.

I dunno. It seems to me most people are fed up to the point of switch-off with parliamentary politics and politicians. The official union structures are offering nothing. At least the French unions have called strikes over the recession and job losses… so I think people make the tea because it looks like there’s not much alternative. But I think it might also mean that when all the bitterness explodes – because I don’t think people are all calm and happy – it could happen completly outside all the ways that we have traditionally expected…

See, I will out-ramble you!

But then there are some good Depression-era revivals going on, like make do and mend, waste not want not, and other pro-planetary practices… I do wonder if Britain is ever going to demand change, what with us being more inclined to tut and put the kettle on. Lately it feels like change will be thrust upon us by circumstances, so where that will go is anyone’s guess.

Sorry, this comment is a bit of an ambling mess. Unlike this splendid new blog, which is an aesthetic joy!