Bit early in the day to go to the desperation comic. The next reshuffle is likely to see her shuffle out. What today's figures from the NFU show is that there has been a fall of 17% in the number of seasonal workers, partly due to the atmosphere in the country and the collapse in the value of the pound. It confirms what some have been able to see. You might decide these workers are needed, yet because you need them they are not forced to come, and will not if it doesn't suit them. In a poll of both remain and leave voters when shown what is actually happening, they agreed that more should come to the country if that was needed. Meanwhile there are reports of complete crops being left to rot because there is not the labour to harvest it.
What most people in the UK are looking forward to is the ability to control and decide on the numbers of these migrant workers. A system can easily be devised giving them short term work permits with no rights to domicile. Many of these workers are already being replaced by mechanisation, a temporary shortage will speed up this process.
Support building for Jacob Rees Mogg for PM Jacob Rees-Mogg 'lined up for ministerial job in preparation for higher office'
"There's no such thing as a free lunch," Mr Friedman would've had us beleive. And yet, despite his market will always prevail ideas, it seems if you know which fields to look in, there may be.
There are many jobs in agriculture which simply cannot be done by mechanical means SH. Agriculture (including forestry) is a special case in as much as that it only employs 1.13% of the British workforce full time, only contributes around 1% to the GDP. of the UK. yet uses 71.23% of the land area (this includes forest area, permanent pasture land, temporary meadows as well as arable land). The rural population growth of the UK. stands at - 0.614% yearly, in other words it is going down. There is not the rural workforce to fill this gap. If you are going to talk about replacing immigrant workers with machines then you should also consider that agriculture is already responsible for 39.53% of methane emissions and 60.9% of nitrous oxide emissions - much of which is a product of agricultural mechanisation. Replacing workers with machines also means bigger fields, even less crop rotation, even more ripped out hedgerows etc. etc. There is no replacement there for immigrant workers. The length of this 'seasonal' work is also much higher than is presumed - if you consider that the first harvest (asparagus) through to the last (late fruit such as apples) is around 6 months. In between time we have help with hay making, tree pruning etc. and a host of other things. Even the slurry which is taken out on the fields is done mostly by seasonal workers. Agriculture will always have a fluctuating demand for labour which, in the past, would have been done by lending workers from one farm to another but which is no longer viable. I would love to go down the road of organic, small scale farming, with proper crop rotation, smaller fields etc. all done by locals and by families, but.....this would involve increases in food prices and the role of agriculture in capitalism is to keep food prices as low as possible so as to protect spending power in other areas.
You still don't get it. The UK is looking forward to the time when WE decide how many foreign workers we need and on what terms, nobody is suggesting banning them all. Of course mechanism cannot replace all migrant labour but I have seen a couple of reports recently on tv on this very subject. If labour is harder to get hold of it does incentivise, probably at high cost, investment in automated means. Short term contracts are the answer with much more effective checks on who is legally in the country.
Just think, we used to have the buffoon John Prescott as Deputy Prime Minister despite his inability to ever make any sense. He did however have some saving graces. He made an effective barrier between the two warring groups in the Labour Party. He also knew which knife and fork to use at posh functions because of his day job as a waiter. Apart from that he had very little going for him except for a good right hook.
Not sure that you 'get it' tbh. There's already a large shortfall in the required labour since the vote and Brexit hasn't occurred yet. WE don't get to decide whether this is country is deemed to be a place where migrant workers want to come, it's their perception on how welcome they'd be made that will decide that. EU workers are turning their backs on the UK as a destination of choice, and are therefore voting with THEIR feet.
With very high unemployment and extremely low wages in many parts of Europe there will always be a supply of ready workers. They just need to know where they stand. There is also a pool of labour from non EU countries that can be accessed to fill any vacancies. The big difference is the UK will decide not Brussels.
One of the reasons they don't wish to come is the collapse in the value of the pound. It is now far better to be paid in Euros which is now a safe currency and they know how much they will have to take home at the end of the season. Clearly there has not been a ready supply of workers otherwise crops would not be rotting in the fields. This is the real difference between what is happening and some half-baked theory.
Yeah on short term no residency rights contracts if your suggestion is how it pans out. Doesn't sound overly appealing. especially given that many EU citizens consider the UK to be anti migrants now. Brussels doesn't decide now btw....people decide. Economic migrants head here in order to build a better lives for themselves and their families, and in doing so help increase our economy. What was needed was a change to what rights economic migrants have to claim any form of financial support in their chosen country. Cameron got a decent concession but it needed to go further and I think there's an increasing likelihood that the EU will change in that regard in the none too distant.
Unfortunately this doesn't conform to most Brexiteers' wishes to keep out 'foreigners'. Besides, the state of our currency is soon going to mean that British workers will be going abroad to labour in their economies - as in the heady days of the deliberately high unemployment Keith Joseph and Thatcher contrived.
Clearly a free-market capitalist then... let the poor and needy rot etc..... If you are a free-marketeer then the market decides???
And if they don't do it by themselves, give them a helping hand - http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2017/09/04/benefit-sanctions-shoot-up-50-in-six-months
The UK currently has the highest employment and lowest unemployment figures for decades. Most Brexiteers would be delighted to be in a position where the UK could actually control the hordes who wish to relocate here due to serious problems in many EU countries. You really should be questioning the policies of fellow EU countries with many times the record low unemployment rate we currently have.
Eastern Europeans working in their own counties are paid a fraction of what can be earned in the UK. After Brexit these migrant workers will be vying with non EU workers for these short term contracts. There will be ample workers long term.
Before using words like 'hordes' it may be appropriate to remember that we are talking about human beings here who have as much right on this earth as you do. You may also like to actually consider numbers here before trying to create the impression that all Europeans have no further dream than to scramble over to the UK. The UK. has far lower EU. immigration than many other countries. As an example - Italy has 10 times as many Rumanians and Germany 3 times as many Poles.
