Britain is braced for more wildcat strikes after a day of confusion in the Government that failed to resolve the row over foreign workers.

Up to 1,000 construction workers at Sellafield, the nuclear reprocessing facility, will decide today whether to join the walkout over building jobs, which unions claim are being handed straight to overseas workers.

Ministers were forced into an embarrassing U-turn yesterday after Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, suggested that the Government was preparing to bow to union demands to push for measures in Europe to protect British jobs. Unions want a new EU directive to overturn a ruling by the European Court of Justice in 2007 that made it easier for companies to circumvent pay deals by hiring foreigners on lower wages.

They believe that Gordon Brown could be forced to take action after promising 'British jobs for British workers' in his 2007 Labour conference speech.

The Times