immigration

Updated 2 February 2009

A few thoughts on the refinery workers' strikes:

Twas amusing this weekend to hear Gordon Brown telling us that wildcat striking, and solidarity striking, is naughty and unhelpful - and hilarious to know that the hopeless twat is very likely to be hamstrung by solidarity striking in this instance.

Hope it hurts, Gordon.

I've been giving this notion of unofficial strikes some thought in the last couple of days, and enjoying it:

If these refinery strikes are taking place independently of unions and union organisation - and the fact they took place so quickly and effectively suggests that they are (where was the balloting, the notices of action, and appeals to strike committees?) - well, it strikes me that the great Gordon could be stuck for a palatable response.

Palatable to the masses, that is.

It all hangs on the independence - or otherwise - of those refinery workers, and their impressive industrial action, from formal union structures.

The thing is - I think Gordon will struggle to punish people who strike independently of formal union organisation. He'll certainly struggle to keep them in line as effectively as he would unions that proposed illegal actions like solidarity striking.

That goes for Labour affiliated unions in particular. Those who know the union movement know only too well that Labour-affiliated unions aren't inclined to stand up to Gordon for real. Apart from anything else, they've probably forgotten how. 

Labour-affiliated unions are as terrified as they ever were of fragging their 'special relationship' with Labour: that relationship with Labour is still the route to government for many highly-placed union bureaucrats - persons who hope to run for political office one day, and/or are prepared to prostrate themselves, and utterly compromise the union membership, to keep the PLP's ear. Have a chat sometime to Fremantle careworkers about the trouble they've had getting permission to strike from union chiefs recently.

Without a doubt, too, this hopeless romance with Labour is the main reason why big unions show such a passion for flattening popular grassroots union activists who have the sort of charisma that might stir the grassroots into the likes of wildcat or solidarity strike action.

You know - there are days when I wonder whether you English are quite the racist, chauvinist pisswits that your mainstream media so passionately holds you to be.

I don't think you are, tbh.

I'll tell you what has put me in mind of this.

I spent the whole of last weekend at the Butlins holiday camp in Bognor Regis - a move which seemed to strike the fear of god into my nearest socialist dearest. 'God, don't go there,' everybody said to me, horrified. 'White working-class on holiday... booze... racists... singalongs... line-dancing... racists... racist comics... blah blah blah...'

The thing is - it was absolutely nothing like that at all. It was one of the most integrated experiences I've had. Was that wrong? Butlins in Bognor Regis was more of a melting-pot than the UN. There were black families. There were white families. There were asian families. There were even - get this - muslim families, with all the props - blokes with the long, black Muslim beards, and women and girls in those nutty ground-length gowns and veils, etc.

Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves and getting along fine, so I could only assume that they were. I could also only assume it was always like that, and that working-class persons of different hues and faith, etc, tend to get along better than those of lofty mindset think. Butlins holidays are fairly intimate events - everybody eats together and swims together and pisses the nights away together at family entertainment sessions, so you need to be in a fairly neighbourly groove at all times.

So - it seemed unlikely that black, asian, and muslim people would set aside annual leave and pay good money to spend a week at a holiday camp where they were likely to get abused and beaten up by drunken white trash, etc. Surely, they could just stay at home if they wanted that. Although - maybe home is all right, too? Maybe nobody hates everybody else to quite the extent that the MSM tells them they do?

The English class system confuses me. I am CONFUSED.