“We have become the laughing stock of Europe”: Nigel Jenney, chief executive of the Fresh Produce Consortium.
The government has not quite been able to ‘take back control‘ this week as the deadline looms for the introduction of extra border checks on animal and plant imports. Government has failed to grant access to the IT system through which ports can invoice importers for the new checks to port authorities.
Sadly, Britain is not just the ‘laughing stock of Europe’ now. We’re in a much gloomier position.
The image of Britain in Europe
In the last few days, Dutch news channels painted a realistic but very bleak picture of the UK, NOS news and Nieuwsuur. Things have gone beyond a joke.
The Dutch are major exporters of flowers, plants and bulbs and may suffer more than other countries in this respect. On April 30 the new border checks add not only red tape but risks to produce. Royal Lemke’s, a major Dutch supplier of both flowers and plants, bemoaned the risks to their business. An extra 5% will be added to the costs for a senseless exercise. The same health checks will be carried out for a second time in the UK that are performed before the plants leave the Dutch borders under EU regulations. Meanwhile, in Brexit Britain, a government spokesperson commented:
“These border checks are fundamental to protecting the U.K.’s food supply chain, farmers and natural environment against costly diseases reaching our shores.”
Costly diseases or costly redundant red tape: the choice is ours, or rather the governments.
James Barnes, chairman of the Horticultural Trades Association, said the policy “feels like it is constructed on the back of an envelope at best”. The charges will not only increase costs but increase the likelihood of empty shelves in supermarkets.
In some markets, time is of the essence due to the perishable nature of goods.
Flower suppliers run the risk of their products arriving at customers in a depleted state:
if the arrival is not timely, the flower heads of plants like orchids start to fall off. A spokesman for RBF Cargo Care in the UK warned consumers will simply not be able to buy the sorts of flowers they want.
Council services
Over to Nieuwsuur: more dark clouds on the horizon.
‘Not such a Great Britain’, commented one Nieuwsuur presenter.
Stagnation is not only the result of Brexit red tape. The dark clouds result from 14 years of austerity which is particularly evident in the case of Birmingham and other councils.
- Since 2010 money from central government for councils has halved.
- Youth clubs have gone.
- Potholes are not fixed.
- Busses are now privatised; some services were removed.
- All manner of services are slowly shutting down.
Birmingham is broken and the council bankrupt, prompting a plan to raise council tax by 21 percent.
The council must save 350 million. The city is on its knees:
- 25 libraries will shut, which is particularly bad as many members of the community used the library as a social focal point, to meet others or catch up on newspapers.
- Bins are emptied every 2 weeks instead of each week.
- Street lights are dimmed to save energy costs.
The NHS problems
Our NHS is bursting at the seams with huge waiting lists which contain the highest number of people on waiting lists since the NHS began. Staff shortages are part of the problem.
A local GP, Dr Hussain Ghandi, must work overtime like many of his colleagues.
Doctors are leaving the profession. The conservatives have not funded healthcare. That’s the problem.
Fleur Launspach, Nieuwsuur reporter for London, comments
public services are worse but add to that rising costs for mortgages and energy prices. This explains why 70% of the UK population want change. Is that labour? Question mark. ‘There’s no money tree for labour to use’.
The B word
There may be no money tree, but if labour wins the next election, there is a way forward.
To grow the economy to provide revenues for improvement and investment plans for councils and the NHS, there is a resource available which is as vital to our economy and culture as water to crops and trees – the single market.
Recent reports on the confusion of the electorate as to what leave meant in 2016 highlighted that many voters did not think that the UK would leave the single market, just the EU.
The UK has not only been starved of the revenues we once had due to Brexit red tape, but human resources in the form of health and social care professionals who once favoured our shores.
It is time for labour to confront this problem face on or the Brexit monster will further damage a country which is already in a downward spiral. Labour’s task in office without the tail wind supplied by single market sourced revenues will be a harder one, pushing against a head wind in an uphill struggle. Making Brexit work would be a voluntary and futile acceptance of a task which is unproductive and doomed to failure in Sisyphus mode’. (Sisyphus, a figure of Greek mythology was condemned to repeat the same meaningless task of pushing a boulder up a mountain forever, only to see it roll down again just as it nears the top).
