Never mind all the stupid bloody ideology to do with taking back control, Boris Johnson is deliberately running down British farming because it is the only way to fulfil his covert promises to other countries to accept large quotas of their goods to replace the home grown British stuff on British supermarket shelves. This is what he calls good trade deals. He is laughing and joking at British farmers as they slaughter and burn their pigs in their own fields.
He could save them and the industry, but he will not. He is a despicable liar.
That is strong language Tom, can it be so? I have heard the farming programmes and the despair of the farmers as they cull their animals. If what you say is right then the inhuman policies of this government to feather their own bed, for this is the way of corruption, is despicable. Myself methinks they have made such a bloody mess of Brexit, that their 'no policy' fiasco of a conference was the truth of a government that doesn't know what to do.
ReplyDeleteI don't think he ever intended to go down this road, but he has been forced to. He knows that without outside help many farmers will go bust, but he will not do more than a token gesture when it comes to importing labour, and then he originally said they have to go home again on Christmas Eve. Everyone knows that nobody would take up this generous offer. We do not know what his trade deal talks consisted of, but when dealing with countries like the USA we can guess. We don't need to guess. tThey laid down their terms publicly even when Trump was in office, and Biden is just following on. Supermarket shelf-gaps will be filled by foreign goods before he backs down and makes another u-turn. The pigs are just the beginning.
DeleteThis was all predicted by the experts the leave campaign so cleverly persuaded people to ignore!
ReplyDeleteHow many of those who voted to leave the EU will realise or care that the British farmers have had to do this? I suspect that most of the disadvantaged who voted for Brexit, thinking that the EU was the cause of all their ills, will be happy as long as the pork is cheap, provenance will not matter, nor will animal welfare and food standards. They will assume that those in power would do the right thing.
I can't remember who used the word clusterfuck in a previous post but it's very apt.
It was Joanne. Pork was too cheap even before all this.
DeletePig producers go in and out of producing pork like a fiddlers elbow, always have and always will, and since way before Brexit, pig prices go up and down and when it becomes a loss in stead of a profit farmers turn to something else. I have just driven through Norfolk through outdoor pig producing areas of which we have many and there are no mass fires or culls. The pigs are being sold at a loss this year, nothing new there, and next year the land will have maize where money can be made from the power stations, another year they may grow wheat, or potatoes; farmers are used to markets going up and down and they change what they produce, often chasing and when you see where you can make money it is usually too late.
ReplyDeleteGoing in and out of various areas of farming according to profitability is nothing new, as you say. This has nothing to do with the price of pork. It is - as you well know - a direct result of our leaving the E.U. and Boris Johnson having to negotiate deals with non-EU countries in a position of extreme weakness following a prolonged period of lack of investment in infrastructure and a huge exodus of labour. It is not normal for farmers to slaughter entire herds of healthy animals and then burn them in the fields. If you want to leave pig farming you phase yourself out, not kill the lot and throw them away.
DeleteB.J. actually quipped, 'They are going to die anyway!' What a clown he is.
DeleteI didn't know he said that. Sums him up really.
DeleteSelling your pigs at a loss is one thing, destroying the whole fruits of your year's labour for no return at all is entirely another. Boris obviously doesn't see the difference and to joke about it is heartless.
Follow the money. For better or worse, it speaks volumes.
ReplyDeleteI am going to respond to all your points tomorrow when I am not so pissed off as I am now. I am probably as bored as you all are with being pissed off, but we all need sleep. I am not a stonemason, btw, but I do not expect arseholes like Derek Faulkner to understand this. How do you put up with him Rachel?
ReplyDeleteI don't, as you well know.
DeleteI saw the comment and did mot like being used by Derek Faulkner as a conduit for attacking you.
DeleteI never let anyone attack you on my blog, as you know. There are now 2 people who are not welcome here and he is definitely one of them. Both of them are unbelievably thick-skinned.
DeleteI believe you, Tom, and this is beyond sad.
ReplyDelete