Having moved to Peebles in 2002, ‘Stooriefit’ Bosco Santimano gives us his own take on what he feels is the hot topic of the day. This week farmers in the UK are on the brink of losing all their summer fruit crops due to a massive decrease in numbers of fruit pickers as a direct result of Brexit!
So here we go again! It seems we have finally gone back to the good old days when the sun never set under the flag of the British Empire. Britain is now more divided and isolated than ever in its history due to the lies and misinformation sold to English voters by the Tories, UKIP and the loony right-wing fringes of British society. After Scottish fishing having suffered huge losses since Brexit officially began this year, the next sector in the firing line is farming. For roughly six months of the year, farmers rely mostly on seasonal labourers coming to Britain mainly from other Eastern European countries to do the work that the local population don’t want. Some of the reasons being; having to work hard in the fields from 4am during summer months to low pay and zero-hour contracts.
Now that the UK has left the European Union it’s no wonder that many Europeans don’t feel welcomed anymore to come to this great nation! The irony was that the British people were sold misinformation about Europe and English nationalism was unleashed during the referendum in 2016 on voters been given the choice to Leave or Remain with no fact checking and downright lies told on national television and the print media day after day after day. Now that Brexit is done and the mask has come off, these very same politicians are still standing with no legal consequences for their action.
Numbers of seasonal workers from the EU have fallen drastically in the last two years and recruitment figures of one company in Kent show that they have fallen by almost 90% in the last two years alone. The impact of Brexit on the flow of workers has and is only getting worse with every passing month. At this rate many farming businesses will collapse and fold permanently with the knock-on effect being price rises of basic foods. With high unemployment on the cards once the furlough scheme is abolished, this country will face an existential crisis for the first time in its history, all of its own making. Director Stephen Taylor of Winterwood Farms Ltd, said that nearly 95% of all fruit and produce picked and packaged in the UK is done by eastern Europeans and from the end of June people who haven’t got pre-settled status, at least, can’t work! That’s a massive hole in recruitment which will not be filled by the locals, who many in England voted to leave, to get back control! Stephen Taylor referenced the UK’s unemployment rate, which stood at 4.8% of over-16s for the first three months of this year, but said it varies by region, and issues arose where British workers did not live-in reach of farms. The Tory government expanded its seasonal Agricultural Workers visa scheme from 10,000 visas issued in 2020 to 30,000 in 2021, at the same time looking to encourage farms to move to automation for a pioneering and efficient future! So, no local jobs created for local people, a promise to English voters to vote leave. This visa allows any EU migrants to work up to six months on a farm in the UK. Mr. Taylor also criticised the politization of the debate on seasonal workers coming to the UK
All Brexiteers should pull up their socks and go to the farms as your country needs you. Hard work it seems does not pay, a reality that the people of this country are waking up to lately.
Published in The Peeblesshire News on Friday 21st May 2021.
