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Gordon Brown’s pledge to create “British jobs for British workers” came back to haunt him yesterday when a dispute over foreign labourers sparked a wave of industrial unrest.

Wildcat strikes flared at more than 19 sites across the country in response to claims that British tradesmen were being barred from construction jobs by contractors using cheaper foreign workers.

Mr Brown, in Davos for the World Economic Forum, was caught by surprise when a ten-day-old strike at an oil refinery in Lincolnshire sparked copy-cat action at other energy plants. Unions claim that British workers are being barred from jobs because of a European Union directive which allows companies to bring in foreign labour for less than they would have to pay to Britons.

The Prime Minister was forced to order an investigation into the claims by the Arbitration and Conciliation Service in order to contain the spreading unrest. But Labour MPs last night emphasised that the wildcat strikes were a warning of mass industrial unrest ahead as the grip of recession tightens on the economy. Jon Cruddas, the Labour MP for Dagenham, urged ministers to act urgently to take the race issue out of the jobs market.

Thousands of engineering, construction and maintenance staff from at least 19 sites around the country took action in support of the Lindsey oil refinery employees. Many held placards quoting Mr Brown’s soundbite. Oil refineries, power stations and chemical plants were affected as thousands of staff downed tools.

About 1,000 protested outside the Lindsey refinery at North Killingholme, Lincolnshire, where about 100 Italian and Portugese workers have been brought in by contractors in preference, unions claim, to British employees. The dispute prompted sympathy strikes at Grangemouth oil refinery in Scotland, the Aberthaw power station near Barry, in South Wales, a refinery in Wilton, Teesside, Kilroot power station in Carrickfergus, Co Antrim, a gas terminal at Milford Haven, West Wales, the Fiddlers Ferry power station near Warrington and a number of other smaller sites.

The rapid spread of the dispute through key energy facilities revived memories of the fuel protests in September 2000, when unofficial blockades of refineries threatened to bring the county to a standstill. The disruption looks set to continue into next week. A spokesman for British Nuclear Fuels said that 900 contractors at the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria plan to meet before work on Monday to discuss taking their own industrial action.

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