REHASHING a 1970s National Front slogan represents a particularly crass attempt at triangulation, even by New Labour standards. But that is precisely what Gordon Brown was doing when he dropped the ‘British jobs for British workers’ soundbite into his 2007 conference speech.

Unsurprisingly, the words are now being quoted back to the prime minister in the wake of the unofficial walkout at Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire, which has triggered a wave of wildcat stoppages up and down the country.

I’m trying hard to remember if any other issue has provoked a similar response in this country at any point over the last quarter of century; if it has, I’d be at a loss to tell you what it was.

For Marxists, full support for what Marx called ‘the self-activity of the working class’ is central to our political thinking. When workers move into struggle against their employers, we are clear on which side we stand. So naturally we are in full solidarity with everyone taking part in today’s action.

The trouble is, the far left is not the only strand of political opinion that is backing the Lindsey dispute, which centres on the decision of an Italian subcontractor to use foreign workers on a construction project at the site.

As the Times reports:

The British National Party was trying to hijack the unofficial strikes today sending activists to join the picket line as the Unite union, which did not sanction the strikes, attempted to retain its influence over members who are angry that British jobs have been lost to European competitors.

“Yesterday was a great day for British nationalism,” said a spokesman for the far-right BNP. As workers addressed a crowd of around 600 outside Lindsey one of the workers shouted: “Get the BNP rep up there” but he was quickly shouted down.

As Socialist Party blogger Phil BC points out in a fine post here, overt racism is thankfully not the dominant mood right now. But a certain nationalist undercurrent is unmistakeably there, present in the logic of the strikers’ chief slogan..Brown’s cheap flirtation with a racist catchphrase the year before last may have far greater consequences than anyone could have predicted at the time.