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British taxes for foreign workers

Friday, 30th January 2009

UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom says Gordon Brown's pledge of British jobs for British workers is in shreds and it has become British taxes for foreign workers instead. He said that he shared the deep anger and frustration of the thousands of workers across the UK who have walked out in protest at the employment of foreign workers on a contract at the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire.

Mr Bloom is the local MEP for Immingham, where the protests started after a £300m project was awarded to an Italian company who brought in 300 workers. Mr. Bloom said: "It defies belief that with unemployment pushing to the three million mark we are bringing in foreign workers to do a job that many British firms could tackle."

He pointed out that the company had no choice but to put the tender out throughout Europe. "It is a European Union rule that any and every project over a certain size must be advertised throughout the EU. You can't blame the company for sticking to the law, but obviously in many cases it works against the interest of British workers.

"This applies to government projects as well. All those tens of billions, hundreds of billions, that Alistair Darling wants to tax us to spend on pet infrastructure projects will mean that more foreigners will be brought in to do the work. It's not British jobs for British workers, it's British taxes for foreign workers."

Mr Bloom added: "When we allow ourselves to be ruled by foreigners we can hardly be surprised that the rules benefit foreigners, can we? Skilled constituents of mine in Lincolnshire are left to rot in unemployment while Italian and Portuguese workers are housed in barges off the docks, imported to do the jobs that could be done by locals.

"What is so enraging is that the other main political parties, Labour, the Tories, Liberal Democrats, they're all in favour of this. It's only us in UKIP who want to change this outrageous situation. While we're in the EU there is absolutely nothing at all that can be done about it. We have to leave so that we can have a system of work permits, so that we bring in only those workers we need, rather than this mass immigration which causes such social turmoil."

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