AN UNCOMFORTABLE air has hung around Gordon Brown’s phrase ‘British jobs for British workers’ since striking refinery workers in Scotland and England adopted it as their slogan.

In their anger at the employment of Portuguese and Italian workers, the men stood on picket lines waving placards reminding the prime minister of his promise.

It was in turn a reminder that, in an era of great job mobility and even greater job insecurity, tensions are high and politicians everywhere must take care with their words.

Attacked in the Commons for ‘pandering to protectionist fears’, Mr Brown responded: ‘Who would not want British workers to get jobs in our country?’.

And few in the island will disagree at a time when unemployment has, by Bailiwick standards, risen to an uncomfortable level.

Given like-for-like skills and availability, it would be wrong for employers to ignore local workers in favour of importing licensed labour. One would expect that to be the case regardless.

However, the island’s economy has historically depended  on the ability to ease its employment shortages and skill gaps with imported labour, whether that be from Madeira, Latvia, Poland, the UK or farther afield. It has been a  relationship that has benefited both sides.

An all too easy misinterpretation of the ministers’ words (in much the same way as the premier’s words were turned against him) would be for the island to raise the drawbridge and shun the outside labour pool.

That would be a mistake and a step beyond what was intended.

Now, more than ever, it is vital that businesses are given the chance to function efficiently and hold their own in a volatile and difficult market.

To do that they will need the best staff available. Hopefully, that means the best local staff – but it will not always be so.

Housing was right then to ask employers to ‘make a real effort to secure local employees from the jobless pool’ but there must be an acceptance that some businesses will fail in that search and will continue to need to look outside the islands.