Post-Brexit fallout - we can't have our cake or eat it

[Cuellar]

Easy solution - start privatising prisons, get loads of people banged up then 'lease' the prisoners to the farmers for fruit picking etc.

Literally everybody wins.

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

We shall see I suppose. I'm happy to celebrate labour taking capital to task and getting more money out of it, even if isn't done via union and is only as a result of all other outcomes being literally unworkable.

Hey, I would love it, love it, if the outcome of the global pandemic and/or Brexit was better pay for the workers. I just can't see it happening under governments who put the needs of the bosses over the needs of the workers.

[Buelligan]

Easy solution - start privatising prisons, get loads of people banged up then 'lease' the prisoners to the farmers for fruit picking etc.

Literally everybody wins.

Except the people that want to eat fruit. 

As Paul said, fruit picking's not just a thing anyone can do immediately.  But it's like all this stuff, isn't it?  Child-minding, care for the elderly, washing up, cleaning and so on, any dull cunt paid nowt can do it, until it's your kid or the plate you want to eat off.  Then we suddenly discover how important it is to have a scrupulously clean hospital.

[Ferris]

Come on mate, you're talking about a the most right wing Tory government since god knows where with a massive majority. There's no 'we shall see' about it

Yeah fair point. This sounds like I'm being sarcastic, but actually they probably will just be shits about it somehow won't they?

For now, I'm happy lorry drivers are getting an extra few quid at the expense of large companies.

[Kankurette]

Hey, I would love it, love it, if the outcome of the global pandemic and/or Brexit was better pay for the workers. I just can't see it happening under governments who put the needs of the bosses over the needs of the workers.

I would have seriously considered voting for Brexit if that had been a certified outcome. Not under this cunt government though.

And I hate the idea that anyone can pick fruit. I can't. As in, I am fucking disabled and being on my feet for a long period of time will result in me ending up in pain for days; I'm still paying for Bob Vylan and that was just a gig. And not everyone lives near farmland, unless companies fancy bussing loads of people in.

[All Surrogate]

I can only imagine that persistent difficulties in finding veg/fruit pickers would lead to a greater effort to automate it, and I think there are already attempts to do so. How successful they are, or how soon they could be made successful, I don't know.

[Paul Calf]

You can't automate picking fruit. It just isn't possible.

[Paul Calf]

I mean, you could automate picking juicing fruit because size, quality  and ripeness don't matter. But picking fruit to be sold for eating is a skilled job. Unless supermarkets agree to buy any old shit whether or not it's edible or saleable, automating fruit picking won't happen.

What you leave on the tree is just as important as what you put in the collection bins.

[katzenjammer]

Yeah fair point. This sounds like I'm being sarcastic, but actually they probably will just be shits about it somehow won't they?

For now, I'm happy lorry drivers are getting an extra few quid at the expense of large companies.

Oh as poirots said, I would also love to be wrong about this but these cunts will always find poor people from somewhere to fill the void

[Paul Calf]

Making a massive show of persecuting illegal immigrants while quietly leaving the channels open for people smugglers would be a good start.

[jamiefairlie]

You can't automate picking fruit. It just isn't possible.

If they diverted the funding from making robots that can climb mountains and shoot a man's face off from 5 miles away, I bet they could get one to recognize a nice strawberry and delicately pick it. I reckon.

[Buelligan]

Heheh, or they could divert that money into paying people adequately to work but where would be the fun or logic in that, eh?

[jamiefairlie]

But then we'll be drowning in robots that can climb mountains and shoot a man's face off from 5 miles away! You really have to think these things through!

[Key]

If they diverted the funding from making robots that can climb mountains and shoot a man's face off from 5 miles away, I bet they could get one to recognize a nice strawberry and delicately pick it. I reckon.

I can imagine armies of shiny T-800 terminators decked out in polo shirts and straw boaters cutting through strawberry groves like termites. They'll really have to be careful squeezing for ripeness with those hydraulic titanium claws.

[jamiefairlie]

I can imagine armies of shiny T-800 terminators decked out in polo shirts and straw boaters cutting through strawberry groves like termites. They'll really have to be careful squeezing for ripeness with those hydraulic titanium claws.

No, no, they have lasers that measure sugar levels.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Not my picture, how one supermarket is dealing with the gaps on its shelves. Like something from a dystopian film.

https://imgur.com/oAjwQWp

[gilbertharding]

Not my picture, how one supermarket is dealing with the gaps on its shelves. Like something from a dystopian film.

https://imgur.com/oAjwQWp

Or The Goon Show: "I'll pay for this picture of some food with this picture of a five pound note."

[Uncle TechTip]

Not my picture, how one supermarket is dealing with the gaps on its shelves. Like something from a dystopian film.

https://imgur.com/oAjwQWp

That looks like Jack's, the Tesco spin off that's in about 13 locations and relies heavily on the Union Jack & British branding. Perhaps not what most of us will see in our local supermarket.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Never heard of them before, but looking at their website some of their food suppliers are holding banners with text on them, seems ideal for some gentle photoshopping:

https://www.jacks-uk.com/producers

[olliebean]

Never heard of them before, but looking at their website some of their food suppliers are holding banners with text on them, seems ideal for some gentle photoshopping:

https://www.jacks-uk.com/producers

Looks to me like they've already been photoshopped.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Carole Malone trying to stir up outrage about the EU charging UK residents for visas now we are no longer members of the EU, like most other countries do.

Does Malone gets annoyed about the US charging UK residents for visas? I imagine the US charges a lot more than £7.

Also, the UK plans to charge EU citizens to visit.

https://twitter.com/JeremyVineOn5/status/1422860567560196099

[Fambo Number Mive]

Tory MP Steve Baker now calls Brexit a "political fiasco". That's Steve Baker, Minister at the Department for Exiting the European Union between 2017 and July 2018, Chairman of the European Research Group (ERG) from 2016 to 2017 and 2019 to 2020 and someone who said he originally joined the Conservative Party with the express intention of campaigning for the UK to leave the EU.

[lipsink]

So, Malone blames the EU for us leaving the EU. The fallout of Brexit is obviously just because the EU hates us and is being spiteful cos we left and that's why we have no food on our shelves. I can see this approach catching on.

[Fambo Number Mive]

A letter to Boris Johnson sent a fortnight ago by James Ramsbotham called on the prime minister to save the north-east from the "damage being done to our economy" by Brexit and urged him to give it his "most urgent and personal attention". Two weeks later, it remains unanswered.

Ramsbotham is the chief executive of the North East England Chamber of Commerce and speaks for thousands of businesses caught by the red tape and extra costs of complying with EU rules. In a recent survey, 38% of members said sales to Europe had fallen since January.

"This is not teething problems," he says. "Our ports face the EU and our region has the highest proportion of any exporting to the EU. It is vital that more barriers come down.".

...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/aug/09/no-strategic-plan-brexit-james-ramsbotham-north-east-chamber-of-commerce

[Fambo Number Mive]

Bad news for residents of Kent:

Emergency powers to handle post-Brexit queues of lorries heading for France are being made permanent, signalling the government expects further cross-Channel disruption.

Operation Brock, a traffic management system designed to cope with queues of up to 13,000 lorries heading for mainland Europe across Kent, was meant to end by October 2021, after being extended once when the Brexit transition period ended in December 2020.

But ministers are planning to make the provisions indefinite by removing "sunset clauses" from the legislation that set out when the powers would expire, the Guardian has learned.

It means the emergency protocol can be activated at any time to govern the flow of lorries around the Port of Dover and Channel tunnel at Folkestone with contraflow systems...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/aug/10/emergency-brexit-powers-for-lorry-queues-to-be-made-permanent

[jobotic]

It's what we wanted. All of us. So we will enjoy wallowing in our own filth. Thank you

[katzenjammer]

I'm getting really bored with all this winning now

[mothman]

Yeah, enough with all these sunlit uplands, we're British, we like grey skies, clouds and drizzle.

[jamiefairlie]

Yeah, enough with all these sunlit uplands, we're British, we like grey skies, clouds and drizzle.

Dreary Downlands.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Brexiters have so many walls of defence protecting their core view that unfortunately anything short of large chunks of England falling into the sea won't be enough, and even then that will be the EU's fault.

It's clear that quietly some of them have realised it's going badly and hasn't been the thrill rush of sticking it to Johnny Foreigner and bloody well making our own way unfettered on the high seas that they hoped, but there's nothing like the British for stewing in our own piss rather than admitting there's a problem and changing the plans.