Jobs for the British? It's a Brown con
GORDON Brown was accused of hypocrisy last night after he pledged “British workers for British jobs”, following years of backing Labour’s open-door immigration policies.
The Prime Minister-in-waiting announced that 200,000 employment vacancies are expected over the next five years thanks to new deals between businesses and the Government in the run-up to the 2012 London Olympics.
Mr Brown told the annual conference of the GMB union in Brighton yesterday: “It is time to train British workers for the British jobs that will be available over the coming few years and to make sure that people who are inactive and unemployed are able to get the new jobs on offer in our country.”
Nearly eight million people – including students and the long-term sick – are classed as “economically inactive”, which is 20 per cent of the working age population. Another 1.7million are unemployed.
But 500,000 migrants seeking work pour into Britain each year, mostly from new European Union nations, according to recent figures.
Shadow Secretary for Work and Pensions Philip Hammond said: “It reeks of hypocrisy for Gordon Brown to gripe about migrant workers taking British jobs when he has been responsible for decisions on freedom of movement for workers from EU Accession states. The uncomfortable fact is that unemployment and economic inactivity are rising.
“The Olympics may provide welcome short-term work opportunity for a few, but what Britain needs is long-term sustainable jobs.”
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the campaign group Migrationwatch, said: “The Government are at last realising there are serious consequences to the mass immigration they permitted, indeed encouraged.
“Some ideas will help, but they come after 10 years of turning a blind eye to foreign immigration running at 600 people a day.”
Plans for a new “British Day” bank holiday – backed by Mr Brown – to help create a new sense of common identity in multi-racial Britain were also slammed.
Shadow Home Secretary David Davis, said: “These are gimmicks that miss the real problem.
“The Government has been embarrassed about promoting a proper sense of pride in being British and has failed to promote core British values.”
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