Buy British is trending on Twitter. Since I consider myself a patriot, as someone who wishes to keep the Great in Britain by remaining in the EU, I wondered, what can we buy that is British?
When people tell me that Britain is full, they need to realise that we congregate on approximately 5% of the land mass. 70% of our land is agricultural with 36% arable. The rest grassland, rough grazing, or woodland. From the land, we mostly produce grains; wheat, oats and barley; root vegetables, chiefly potatoes and sugar beet; pulses such as beans or peas; forage crops such as cabbages, rape and kale; fruit, particularly apples and pears; and hay. We produce about 6.5 million tonnes of barley. 1.5 million tonnes are exported, 2 million tonnes used in brewing and distilling activities and the remainder fed to livestock. After Brexit, Michael Gove has admitted that we will see tariffs applied to meat of up to 40%. The Grocer reported that exports outside the EU may not be accepted at all. Lamb farmers are especially vulnerable, as 98% of their production is exported and their business runs on narrow margins.
Apart from the economics, estimates suggest that 90% of the 75,000 seasonal workers in edible horticulture in the UK are migrants from the EU. They will no longer be eligible to come here to pick the fruit and evidence suggests that Britons do not wish to do the work. Read our article on traffic contagion in Kent for more insights.
So, what foods will we not see on our shelves so much after Brexit? Here’s a short list:
“How about a good British Curry” I hear you say? Well the sauces are made in Patak’s factory in Poland. I understand that people are stockpiling Christmas Puddings, presumably informed by the instruction from Wizzard Johnson that “I wish it could be Christmas every day”. Sadly many of the ingredients are not indigenous to Britain.
“We make cars” I hear you say. Quite correct. Our most popular cars are made by Nissan (Japanese), Land Rover (Indian), Mini (German), Honda (Japanese) and Toyota (Japanese). Tariffs will make cars made in Britain more expensive to buy domestically or uncompetitive to export. We have already seen industry making tough choices on where to locate production and this will continue under Brexit.
Chris Barnett points out that if you want to buy a British car you can buy a Morgan. The engine is German though.
Then there are the rest of the things we consume. Electronics, toys, computers. Most of them are imports which are therefore subject to whatever trade deals and relationships we chose to strike with the rest of the world if we continue with Brexit. Our level of trusthworthiness will largely dictate how these go.
And it’s not just food. See our article on medicine shortages. People will die for Brexit. Are you prepared to accept this on behalf of friends and loved ones? It’s all on you if you continue to want any kind of Brexit. Ask Wendy Novak about health and medicines after Brexit.
Today, Boris Johnson will promise to power the UK with wind by 2030. In particular he promises £160 million in ports and factories across the country to manufacture the next generation of turbines. Malcolm Miller helpfully points out that this is about “half a footballer”.
It’s an ideal time for Boris to harness the winds of change. While he hasn’t quite blown it with the electorate, some of his back benchers have really got the wind up recently: at his inability to provide leadership, to offer a strategy or fulfil the simplest 3-word pledge. Now, perhaps it’s time to “Make Britain Whirl-beating”.
Since he was a cub reporter in Brussels, Johnson has always been a fan of hot air: from the supposed ban on prawn-flavoured crisps, to a fabrication on euro-coffins, he’s always known the power of a good wind-up. As a man capable of fabricating ‘an inverted pyramid of piffle’ on a whim, we’ve seen his promises on a checkless border for Northern Ireland, an oven-ready Brexit deal and 40 new hospitals for the NHS. Ireland is an unsolvable conundrum, the oven-ready deal’s in the bin, and 40 has shrunk to 6. So, how many times can a man talk up an empty pledge, before he can die in a ditch? Perhaps the answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.
Whilst a blow-by-blow account of Boris’s lies has inflated more blogs than your average gas-bag, let’s look at few choice outbursts:
Let’s spend £350 million per week on the NHS.
Let’s take back control of our fish.
There will be no checks on goods coming and going to Northern Ireland.
We’ll build 40 new hospitals. Six were built.
If I don’t get Brexit done by Halloween, I will die in a ditch.
We’ll get 50 000 more nurses in the NHS.
Pop Brexit in the microwave, gas mark 4.
I’ve had to give drinking up until Brexit is done.
When we leave the EU we can ban shark fin soup.
“Operation Moonshot” (millions of Corona tests with results within minutes) will see mass Corona testing by November. He did not say how many minutes or which year.
When we leave the EU we can have straight bananas.
We’ll get 20 000 more police officers on the street. They sacked 20 000 police offers in 2010.
EU regulations stop us lowering lorry windows to help cyclists.
“I didn’t make any remarks about Turkey” in the referendum”, after indicating that Turkey (population 76 million) is joining the EU.
I will lie (sic) down in front of the bulldozers at Heathrow to stop them building the runway. Instead he was AWOL at the vote.
There may be bumps in the road with no deal.
“I have not had an affair with Petronella. It is complete balderdash”.
Of the tests conducted at the 199 testing centres, as well as the mobile centres, they’re all done within 24 hours.
We will have a world-beating “test and trace” system by 1 June. Johnson did not say which year …
If you have lived overseas for 15 years Britons, unlike other foreign nationals, get no vote. Boris promised to abolish this law / rule when he came to power.
[20 000 people died unnecessarily in care homes] because too many care homes didn’t really follow the procedures in the way that they could have.
We will beat the virus by Christmas. He did not say which year …
We’ll help everyone cycle via the fix my bike scheme. The website broke on launch and then they said the scheme had closed.
A hard border in Kent and a “passport” scheme for people driving to Europe.
“Black people are piccaninnies with watermelon smiles”.
On Muslim face veils, Johnson said it is “absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letterboxes”.
Johnson backed a failed plan for a “floating paradise” across the River Thames wasting £43 million of your taxes. A mere trifle in comparison with the £200 billion blown on Brexit so far.
Boris has always favoured breezing through life with no responsibility. But with 15,000 test results lost, 70 mile lorry queues predicted for Kent, and power cuts predicted for next year, perhaps the time is coming when he might reap the whirlwind after all.
With thanks to Chris Barnett, LCD views, Malcolm Miller, Jane Berry, Janet Ashton, Helga Perry, Catherine Reynolds, Elaine Machin.
Boris Johnson is heading an Anti-Conservative Tory Government. Conservatives instinctively want to conserve, as the name implies, but this is an administration of destroyers. Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s senior adviser, is not even a member of the Tory party. He treats its elected representatives with contempt.
These occupants of No 10 reject traditional Tory respect for continuity and compromise in favour of creative destruction. Their current targets are the BBC, the impartial civil service, and the judiciary, with our planning system. Further down the road, they plan to destroy local government.
Managerial capability and economic credibility have been thrown out of the window. This is most recently demonstrated by the extraordinary failure to report and then trace the contacts of almost 16,000 COVID-19 cases. One Tory former cabinet minister robustly denounces the prime minister and his top team.
“I am a Conservative but we don’t have a Conservative government. Conservatives believe in parliament, they don’t try to bypass it, Conservatives believe in the rule of law, they don’t announce to the House of Commons and the world that they are going to break the law. Conservatives believe in the Union and in trying to hold on to the best aspects of diplomacy like the Good Friday agreement. This is a bad English nationalist government with no idea of where it’s going.”
The Law Society have objected to Government breaking the law in the strongest of terms. So have The Bar Council.
In all this the guiding hand of Cummings is clear. This over-powerful adviser has no respect for our Institutions, Parliament, the Constitution or the law itself. He has built a power base at the heart of Government which is beyond accountability. His activities are not confined to “getting Brexit done”. Our traditions and system of government are being undermined. A stench of corruption and cronyism is emanating from No 10.
Conservative MPs must act as they did following the 2017 general election. They told Theresa May to dispense with her advisors, Nicholas Timothy and Fiona Hill, or face a leadership challenge. In the interests of Britain’s democracy the same needs to be done now with Dominic Cummings and his gang of aides. If Johnson is unable to do without him, it is time for him to go too.
By Adrian Ekins-Daukes : Former Conservative Councillor
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As COVIDIOTS break lockdown, we sum up Brexit and other world news. Using the medium of “The Sunday Sun” …. Yesterday’s news tomorrow.
Here’s a few facts to ground the populist satire:
Boris Johnson actually used M People’s “Search for the Hero inside yourself” in his party conference speech last week. This marked his complete transition to the “David Brent” of politics. He also quoted himself when talking about windpower. He suggested that “someone else” said that windpower could not blow the skin off a rice pudding. That someone else was in fact Boris Johnson.
Matt Hancock broke lockdown rules by drinking in The House of Commons after 10 pm. Stanley Johnson has also broken lockdown rules on several occasions recently. As COVIDIOTS break lockdown, we ask how reasonable is it for Police to fine members of the public or insist on lockdown rules. As they say in Leadership “The fish rots from the head”.
MP’s have been denied a say on laws that define our food safety. This opens the door to hormone fed beef and chlorinated chicken. Britain moves from a standard bearer to a law breaker.
MP’s have been awarded a £3300 pay rise. Just for comparison, Brexit has cost each and every one of us £3000 so far. Is this what they mean by “levelling up”?
Stockpiling has begun again in earnest, with restrictions on the purchase of some goods. The COVID food crisis was more or less caused by panic buying. However the looming Brexit disaster will be based on real supply shortages over the medium – long term. Here’s a list of foods that will likely be in short supply after Brexit, if we allow this “Britastrophe” to continue.
With thanks to Helga Perry, Susanna Leissle, Irina Fridman and Judith Spencer for the inspiration for our “Sun” page.
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