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Direct government intervention in the deepening industrial crisis sparked by workers on strike at an oil refinery has come a step closer.

Officials from Downing Street, the Business and Enterprise, and Energy and Climate Change departments have entered into discussions with the employers at the centre of the dispute as union leaders condemned attempts by far right groups to stoke up resentment against foreign workers.

Thousands of workers across the country have come out in support of the original strike which began on Thursday at Lindsey Oil Refinery in Lincolnshire after French oil giant Total awarded a £200m contract to Italian firm IREM.

Gordon Brown was yesterday forced to order in the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) to investigate union claims that British workers are being barred from working on the contract.

There are fears the unrest will escalate further with around 900 nuclear power plant contractors at Sellafield station in Cumbria set to vote on Monday morning on whether to join sympathy strikes already at around 20 sites across Britain.

Around 600 Scottish workers downed tools yesterday at the Longannet power station and the Mossmorran ethylene plant in support of the Lincolnshire workers.

Other workers at oil refineries, gas and electricity plants, steel and chemical works in Hampshire, Cheshire, Teeside, other parts of Scotland, south Wales and Northern Ireland joined in sympathy actions in support of around 1,000 workers who protested outside the Lindsey Oil Refinery yesterday and there was similar action again today.

An Acas spokeswoman said: “We will be contacting representatives from the employers and unions over the weekend to see if we can make progress.”

There were further problems for the government today when one of its own MPs criticised Gordon Brown’s now infamous line about British jobs for British workers.

Frank Field, MP for Birkenhead, said: “These strikes are proving to be for Gordon Brown a double whammy.

“The claim of ’British jobs for British workers’ looks a pretty empty promise.

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