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Not enough people to exploit too much Thanks to Brexit fruit is going to be left to rot in the fields. How can we cope without a reliable supply of cheap foreign labour and zero-hours contracts to cover the seasonal summer work? All this will push the cost onto society in the form of more expensive grocery bills.
Meanwhile, those evil Capitalists at Amazon are exploiting cheap labour and forcing people to work zero-hours contracts to cover the seasonal winter work, pushing the cost onto society in the form of tax credits.
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We are approaching peak leftist/ReMainiac cockrot.
To coincide with the progressing weakness/cowardice/treason of the Fish Faced Cow.
They sense the hag’s weakness and are being emboldened to push.
She is the point of weakness. And she has surrounded herself with sell-out scum.
Yet–thanks to the 6/17 debacle– she cannot deliver a sell-out that will easily fly. A majority of ReMainiac MuPpets would have given her that power–which was the plan–but she bungled that as well.
The only area where she seems at all capable is in giving ever-more powers to the costumed thugs.
Orwell provided a prefect term for this, Rob: doublethink
“Tax Credits” remind me of the Speenhamland system of government wage subsidies – that spread from the war years of the 1790s till being ended by the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 (perhaps the last time when a welfare reform actually cost less, rather than more, money than the system it replaced – and NO it did not shove everyone in workhouses). The Speenhamland system was not got rid of because of “capitalist ideology” it was got rid of because it could not be afforded – especially in rural areas.
As for British independence (how I hate that silly word “Brexit”) – I am fully in support of British independence from the European Union, but (sadly) I see little chance of this happening. Betrayal is in the air.
I suspect you’re pointing to this as a contradiction, but it’s really just a dishonest two-stage process, with the treatment of fruitpickers and delivery workers at different stages.
Stage One, you get as many poor immigrant/seasonal workers as possible into the country – into the system – with the argument that their very poor wages are better than they can get at home. You appeal to the self-interest of those wishing to buy affordable fruit.
In Stage Two, you convert all of those poorly-paid piece-work laborers into full-time employees with good pay and benefits. You suddenly forget about the benefits of cheap fruit.
And you never, ever, mention that perhaps you have a lack of fruit pickers because your country pays welfare benefits that are higher than current fruitpicker pay.
What is the status of youth unemployment in the U K?
Could work for welfare work on this issue?
(IF it is an issue)
Hmmm! Sounds like a business opportunity. Instead of hiring icky workers, fruit growers could seek a better class of fruit pickers — maybe charge rich greenies a hefty premium for coming to the fields and picking their own fruit? Perhaps throw in a glass of Chablis in a clubhouse at the end of the day, while those wealthy barristers and bureaucrats swap tales about fighting off vicious birds while risking everything to pick the perfect strawberry?
@RRS, why would you want people to work in the fields in return for their dole money? Sounds like modern slavery to me.
The fruit gowers argument doesn’t hold water. I did this calculation before for Florida oranges and you can quickly see that the picking cost is a negligible part of the the retail price. The growers obviously want to cut costs, but citing the cost to the consumer is disingenuous.
“Fruit rotting in the fields” is cheap rhetoric. We hear it every time the government doesn’t increase guest workers slots in the US, but somehow no matter what happens, the fruit always gets picked.
Automated pickers are a thing. More and more fruits and vegetables can be picked automatically. What is the investment level in automated picking equipment in the UK?
Hey, a lot of that fruit wouldn’t meet EU standards, and would be thrown out (remember the bendy bananas storm in a teacup?). After Brexit, you’ll be able to eat straight bananas! As for automation, Britain will become such a people-magnet (can you say tax-haven?) that you’ll need to hire the best people and robots that money can buy!
Presumably it is completely beyond the wit of our hopeless politicians to arrange a system of work permits for foreign workers to come and work here. The remainers talk as if there is some kind of insurmountable problem that cannot possibly be overcome. I often thought that the welfare state had infantalised a certain portion of the population and made them incapable of taking responsibility for their own lives and that of their dependants. Has the EU infantalised entire countries and led them to believe that they also are incapable of doing anything for themselves?
” Has the EU infantalised entire countries and led them to believe that they also are incapable of doing anything for themselves?”
Yes – that’s the primary reason I voted leave – because it has completely hollowed out our body politic
I think it also infantilises a certain portion of those who run it.
And here was me (mis?)remembering that it was curved cucumbers we’d be able to eat after Brexit. Clearly the remoaners have a point – we voted for Brexit without understanding what it meant. 🙂
Forcing people who work to give their hard-earned to others so those others can do no work sounds more like (less unlike) slavery to me.
Expensive (one way or another) lessons that (ie)English, and subsequent US, Barons failed to learn.
Shoulda’ cut our OWN damn sugar cane.
Shoulda’ picked our OWN damn cotton.
I suppose it’s one thing to “invade”, set up an industry, and hire the locals.
It’s quite another to to do the same and import “foreign” labor.
But what do I know?
Maybe there’s a Political Science/Economics expert that has weighed in on this in the past.
“Why would you want people to work in the fields in return for their dole money?”
Would it be unreasonable then to cut the dole money being paid to people who don’t work when there are low skilled jobs available.
On a visit to the town museum this evening I was reminded that one third of the population of what was then a small town was on Poor Relief (i.e. counted as “paupers”) in the early 19th century. Sorry Charles Dickens, but that system had to go – it was unsustainable.
In most of Scotland, at exactly the same time, there was no Poor Rate (tax) at all (not till 1845) and in France welfare taxes did not arrive to much later – were people starving to death in the France of the 1890s? Or the 1860s for that matter.
“But Ireland…..” – Ireland had a Poor Law in the 1840s, it had one for decades before that. And millions of Pounds were spent on famine relief. And there were government schools and government police and government……
“Laissez faire Ireland” is a myth – at least as far as the 19th century is concerned (India was actually more statist). There was an active government – and it FAILED.
Brexit?
What Brexit?
You see anyone Brexitting around here?