Should the UK remain a member of the EU

[Anny Road]

If tins of veg were not grown in this hemisphere there will be no food shortages then.

Don’t blame anyone else but joe public for workers exploitation. They want a chicken for 2 quid and will go somewhere else to get it. Supermarkets respond.

On the subject of exploitation of foreign workers as an obvious principled individual you have never bought any Nike or Adidas products I take it.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

If tins of veg were not grown in this hemisphere there will be no food shortages then.

Don’t blame anyone else but joe public for workers exploitation. They want a chicken for 2 quid and will go somewhere else to get it. Supermarkets respond.

On the subject of exploitation of foreign workers as an obvious principled individual you have never bought any Nike or Adidas products I take it.

That's a ridiculously naive view, to buy the line spun by Tesco (or whoever) that they're just innocently responding to the demands of consumers.

 

And in response to your last bit of snark, I try to swerve the worst exploiters and buy from the more ethical ones, where I can. This economics textbook of yours is predicated on informed consumers being given plenty of choice; in the real world, manufacturers and retailers withold information and offer little real choice, so the standard model of economics falls at the first hurdle.

[Anny Road]

That's a ridiculously naive view, to buy the line spun by Tesco (or whoever) that they're just innocently responding to the demands of consumers.

And in response to your last bit of snark, I try to swerve the worst exploiters and buy from the more ethical ones, where I can. This economics textbook of yours is predicated on informed consumers being given plenty of choice; in the real world, manufacturers and retailers withold information and offer little real choice, so the standard model of economics falls at the first hurdle.

It’s far from naive. If you studied the trends in uk food retail you would be aware that the discount pile it high Lidl, Aldi retailers have experienced huge growth while up until recently Tesco and M&S have been getting twatted.

One reason and one alone. Cost. Not service, not shopping experience Cost.

How do others respond to this? They explore cost savings in terms of produce and supply. Fact

As for the ‘sarky’ bit you try to swerve where you can. I take you cannot live without a pair of trainers so fuck the Chinese working in shiholes. I wear them too I am just not hypocritical enough to lecture people on global workers exploitation.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

I don't wear trainers.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

It's not hypocritical to say that the system you live in is morally shit.

[Anny Road]

Just ethically made moccasins and sandals with socks on. Yer bif.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Just ethically made moccasins and sandals with socks on. Yer bif.

Wind yer fucking neck in. I'm not slagging anyone else for buying stuff without knowing who made it or what conditions they work in; I do the same myself. (I don’t wear trabs because I'm not an athlete or a scruff.) I'm pointing out that the retailers keep that sort of information from the customers, so it's wrong to pretend that the customers are insisting on things that can only be produced by exploiting people.

[Dr Arthur De Sabre]

If tins of veg were not grown in this hemisphere there will be no food shortages then.

Don’t blame anyone else but joe public for workers exploitation. They want a chicken for 2 quid and will go somewhere else to get it. Supermarkets respond.

On the subject of exploitation of foreign workers as an obvious principled individual you have never bought any Nike or Adidas products I take it.

People buy what they can afford yer cabbage. Zero hour contracts, cheapest food available, decent middle income - hit the farmers market, pay a little more, buy fresh. You are looking at much more reliance on zero hour contracts when you leave the union.

It’s not about bottles of Chablis, it’s about the basics.

As money becomes tighter, you get accustomed to accepting lower standards. Also ALDI and like, savings te d to come from the costs savings on presentation and advertisements, plus as most of the produce is sourced from mainland Europe - people have confidence ce that it is decent swag, poorly packaged, unlike the substandard shite the yanks are happy to feed their poor.

[Lee909]

People buy what they can afford yer cabbage. Zero hour contracts, cheapest food available, decent middle income - hit the farmers market, pay a little more, buy fresh. You are looking at much more reliance on zero hour contracts when you leave the union.

It’s not about bottles of Chablis, it’s about the basics.

As money becomes tighter, you get accustomed to accepting lower standards. Also ALDI and like, savings te d to come from the costs savings on presentation and advertisements, plus as most of the produce is sourced from mainland Europe - people have confidence ce that it is decent swag, poorly packaged, unlike the substandard shite the yanks are happy to feed their poor.

 

 

 

This

Anyone that's been in some of the cheaper supermarkets in the US would not want to be shopping in them for a weeks food.

[deiseach]

I’m sure a lot of Brexit supporters believe foreigners are stealing all the jobs, and claiming child support at the same time and sending it home.

This is a reply to a question that wasn't asked. I'll try again: name one Brexiteer who says they want to fuck jobs etc. You know, the 'other shit' that you claim differentiates you from the Rees-Moggs of this world.

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

Just imagine if they go for blue WW2 style ration books. It could cause mass confusion, getting it mixed up with your new blue passport.

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/29/no-deal-brexit-food-supply-chain-crisis

 

Brexit provides the perfect ingredients for a national food crisis

 

When it comes to the UK’s supply chain, preparations for a no-deal scenario are non-existent

 

Jay Rayner

 

Sun 29 Jul 2018 10.00 BST

 

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In 1941, the refrigeration company William Douglas and Sons completed work on a brick-and-steel-frame cold store for meat and fish, on a site at Goldsborough in North Yorkshire. Although the building was demolished a couple of years ago, Theresa May and her newly appointed Brexitsecretary, Dominic Raab, might still like to have a look at the site, to get a sense of what the central management of a food supply chain crisis really looks like. Because right now they don’t seem to have the first clue. It’s vast and it sits alongside what was once a railway track. What’s more, it’s only one of 43 built that year around the country, alongside 40 grain stores. And all for a population only a little more than half that of today’s.

 

Last week, in evidence to the Brexit select committee, Raab announced that the government would be working to secure “adequate food supplies” in the event of a no-deal Brexit, which could impede the free flow across our borders of the 30% of our food currently imported from the EU. No, the government itself would not be stockpiling food. Quite right. It doesn’t have a way of doing so. Instead, it would be up to the food industry to deal with it. They are comments that have left the entire British food supply chain – farmers, producers and retailers – utterly baffled.

 

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“There isn’t warehousing space in this country,” Ian Wright of the Food and Drink Federation, which represents the interests of UK manufacturers, told me. “There doesn’t need to be, because companies do not hold huge inventories. It’s massively financially inefficient to do so.” Only 49% of the food we consume is produced in Britain, he said. The rest comes from abroad, and most of that is in the form of ingredients to be turned into the foods we eventually eat. It arrives just in time to be used, after which the finished goods are immediately dispatched. “I don’t think the government understands that,” he said.

 

Or, as the head of one of Britain’s biggest food manufacturers put it to me, “That lot couldn’t run a fish and chip shop.”

 

Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, which represents all the major food retailers, agrees. “It’s just not a practical notion,” she said. “There’s no space to store food. Supply chains are extremely fragile.”

 

Perhaps the food industry would have a better grasp of the government’s thinking, or be able to explain its failings, if there had been any contact with ministers or civil servants, but so far there has been none. “We suggested to government months ago that we should talk about contingency planning,” says Wright, “but we haven’t yet had the conversation.” The same applies to the big supermarkets. “As far as I know, none of the supermarkets have been approached,” says Dickinson. Ditto the farmers. “None of the elected officials or officials at the NFU has had any of those conversations,” a senior figure at the National Farmers’ Union told me.

 

Should we be concerned? According to Wright, absolutely. “You need only one unexpected shock in the supply chain and you’ve got no product very quickly.” He points to the recent acute shortage of CO2, a by-product of the fertiliser business. It led to supply problems with everything from beer to crumpets. A no-deal Brexit would make that one episode look like child’s play. “It would be disruption on a pretty epic scale, at least for a number of weeks,” he says. “If this does go wrong, we would see a very speedy erosion of choice.”

 

That would be the case in any year, but over the next 12 months supply problems are going to be exacerbated by other challenges facing British agriculture. As we report today, the NFU is calling a drought summit to discuss the critical weather-related issues facing farmers across the UK. Many cattle are already being given winter feeds because grassland has been scorched. Some are being sent to slaughter early to cut losses. Milk yields are heading downwards and potato crops have been badly hit.

 

Raab’s solution is just to find other countries to make up the shortfall. “The idea that we only get food imports into this country from one continent is not appropriate,” he said. But if that means looking towards the United States, he is deluding himself.

 

Last week the Centre for Food Policy at City, University of London released a briefing paper written by, among others, Professor Tim Lang, looking at British food security post-Brexit. It pointed out that the US is currently only the tenth largest exporter of food to Britain. “For the US to replace the combined food imports from the other nine of the top 10,” the report said, “would require a vast food flotilla and logistics operation exceeding that of the 1940-45 Atlantic convoys.”

 

The reference to the second world war is apposite. The Atlantic convoys, like those cold stores, were created to counter an external, existential threat to national survival. This peacetime threat has been created entirely by the ludicrous ideology of Brexit, its mismanagement by Theresa May’s government and infighting within the Tory party. Our currently abundant food supply may well be downgraded to merely “adequate”. It is a dereliction of duty and an abnegation of the basic responsibilities of good government, on a truly staggering scale. Those involved should hang their heads in shame.

[clangers]

Just read the article above, I can't believe any sitting government would allow this to happen irrespective the extremes of their own party. If the food supplies ran out irrespective of which way people voted in the referendum they'd be out for a generation.

 

It doesn't matter whether the EU are apparently punishing us for not allowing us to keep whatever benefits we like (it's irresponsible nonsense on the part of brexiteer's) they've had two years to plan the logistics of this and the best they can come up with is to try to pass this onto the food industry.

[clangers]

If they would have labelled them properly I’d have been all over them.

I ate a horse once on holiday in France, she didn't taste very nice.

[thegreatelephant]

 

'all they want is food for God's sake!'

[Pidge]

Bulk ordering Huel for the bunker. 

[Rico1304]

For anyone thinking of,stockpiling 660ml bottles of Super Bock are on offer at Tesco, 3for £5.25.

[Captain Turdseye]

For anyone thinking of,stockpiling 660ml bottles of Super Bock are on offer at Tesco, 3for £5.25.

What’s the expiry date on them? I’m not sure you’ve given this stockpiling stuff enough thought.

 

I’m setting up a home brewing system to get rich off the back of alcohol shortages. By the time we’re allowed back in the EU I’ll have enough money to buy a house in all 27 countries.

[Rico1304]

What’s the expiry date on them? I’m not sure you’ve given this stockpiling stuff enough thought.

I’m setting up a home brewing system to get rich off the back of alcohol shortages. By the time we’re allowed back in the EU I’ll have enough money to buy a house in all 27 countries.

You’ll be dead by then

[Captain Turdseye]

You’ll be dead by then

I’m not sure how to respond to this really.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

You’ll be dead by then

 

 

I’m not sure how to respond to this really.

 

http://www.liverpoolway.co.uk/index.php?/topic/112810-death-threats/

[Rico1304]

Another thread by an expert refuting the ‘WTO rules will be easy’ line.

 

https://twitter.com/dmitryopines/status/1024233197377388546?s=21

[Strontium]

I remember the pre 1970 mass starvation well.

 

Yes, it was called rationing.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Another thread by an expert refuting the ‘WTO rules will be easy’ line.

 

https://twitter.com/dmitryopines/status/1024233197377388546?s=21

This is why Michael Gove has had enough of experts: with their facts and their reason, they never agree with him.

[clangers]

This is why Michael Gove has had enough of experts: with their facts and their reason, they never agree with him.

And yet the man thinks he should be prime minister which does in theory suggest that he views himself as an expert of sorts.

 

Nice to see the Brexiteer's offering their own economic forecasting of the benefits of Brexit ranging from 20 years time to JRM's 50 year prediction even some suggesting the end of the current century. Really something for us to look forward to then?