WILDCAT strikes may threaten fuel and power supplies this week with an escalation of protests against foreign workers taking key contracts, despite Gordon Brown’s pledge to secure “British jobs for British workers”.

There are calls for a national boycott of filling stations run by Total, the French oil company, and plans to move the protest south by blockading the oil-fired Isle of Grain power station in north Kent which provides 3% of the energy needs of the National Grid.

As ministers held emergency meetings with union leaders yesterday to try to stem the flow of unofficial protests, militant shop stewards were plotting their next moves.

A plan for a national march against foreign workers, to take place in London, is under way and organisers are already in touch with farmers and hauliers who staged the protests against fuel tax in 2000.

Last week about 700 workers went on strike at the Lindsey oil refinery at Killingholme, north Lincolnshire, and another 3,000 walked out in sympathy at 14 refineries and power stations.

Tomorrow the dispute may spread to the nuclear industry with 900 contractors at Sellafield nuclear power station voting on a proposed strike.

The government appears to have been caught out by the speed with which the dispute is escalating. Already there appears to be division within its ranks.

Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, issued a stark warning against moves to protect British jobs from foreign workers. He insisted that companies must continue to be allowed to employ staff from overseas. In a blunt message to the protestors, he said: “Protectionism would be a sure-fire way of turning recession into depression.”

His tough stance was echoed by the Prime Minister, who condemned plans for further wildcat strikes tomorrow. “That’s not the right thing to do and it’s not defensible,” Brown said.

At the same time Pat Mc-Fadden, the employment minister, was meeting union leaders to try to settle the dispute.

In their protest placards and banners, the strikers repeatedly highlighted Brown’s speech about “British jobs for British workers” which was delivered to the Labour party conference in September 2007. The prime minister may now be hoist by his own petard because Mandelson’s comments yesterday make it clear that the government has no power to legislate for British jobs.

Official statistics show that the number of foreign workers has risen by 175,000 since Brown’s speech, while the number of British in work has fallen by 46,000.

Frank Field, Labour MP for Birkenhead, said: “These strikes are proving to be a double whammy for Gordon Brown. The claim of ‘British jobs for British workers’ looks a pretty empty promise. Worse still, it shows the European Union has us in a double arm lock. British workers are being specifically excluded from working on contracts by European contractors.”

Oil company bosses have taken to trawling the internet in an attempt to keep pace with striking workers who are coordinating action on websites such as ukwelder.com.

Yesterday the website discussed possible action at the Isle of Grain - considered vulnerable because “there is only one way in” - and the London Olympics venues.

Lawyers acting for Total have shown print-outs of previous posts to the website to a judge. The company alleges that workers have spent several weeks planning the main protest at its refinery at Killingholme where 400 job vacancies will eventually be filled by Italian and Portuguese workers.

In an application for an injunction preventing demonstrators from setting foot inside the refinery, solicitors Denton Wilde Sapte stated that the ukwelder.com site revealed plans for “disruptive” action at the Killingholme plant.

The application quoted adverse comment on the site’s chatroom, including “stop the men and the steel from going through the gates” and “let's send them stinking foreign leeches back to theyre urine soaked shantys [sic]”.

Total is said to be increasingly concerned at growing calls by unions for a boycott of all its filling stations across the UK.

Billy Bones, the local Unite trade union convenor at Killingholme, said yesterday: “The support we are getting from across the country is staggering.”

Additional reporting: Abul Taher, Stuart MacDonald

It’s legal

The government says IREM, the contractor which triggered the dispute in Lincolnshire with plans to bring in up to 400 Italian and Portuguese workers, is acting within European Union laws.

The 1999 EU posted workers directive sets out the rules for employers who temporarily move workers to another member state.

There is no obligation to pay the “posted” staff the same market rates of the host country, but employers must comply with local minimum wage rates and statutory benefits.

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