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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To say that every one of us needs to watch last night’s Dispatches on Ch4.

239 replies

NellyJames · 13/10/2020 11:12

Just finished watching this. I knew it was bad but not this grim. Eye opening even for me. I knew about the meat but not the fruit and veg. And apparently the trade deal will only benefit the UK economy by less than 1%!
mobile.twitter.com/C4Dispatches/status/1315651199631319045?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

OP posts:
Tellmetruth4 · 13/10/2020 16:15

Didn’t most of the farmers and fishermen vote for Brexit? There were leave signs all over the countryside.

Flumpaphone · 13/10/2020 16:19

It probably will have less of an impact in the fresh food sector - fresh meat is an expensive commodity to move such a distance and remain price competitive against UK alternatives. Labeling will be a problem but the supermarkets will find ways to re-assure the customer "All our fresh meat from Uk farms etc" doesn't contravene the rules on any individual products, whilst getting the message across.

Where it will have an impact is in the processed food sector where price will play a role as food can be transported frozen. It's not just meat, egg production is an area where things could get dangerous. The Uk egg industry supports about 10,000 jobs and pretty high standards given previous scandals. Egg supply to retail will probably not be affected for the reasons above but a huge amount of egg production goes into processed food as liquid egg. At the moment, we have EU standards so our egg producers receive a reasonable price and retain standards.

Outside the EU and with trade deals in place with say the US or, more crucially for the egg trade, Ukraine (signed this week), where a vast quantity of eggs are produced at much lower standards and a much lower price, there will be nothing to stop them hitting the uk market. UK food processors faced with tariffs on other ingredients might well be tempted to cut a cost by buying cheap eggs. Our farmers will either have to drop their standards (thus the standards in supermarkets) or more likely be undercut and put out of business. Those who do wish to maintain standards will find increased costs and competition and will either need to pass those costs on to the consumer or fold.

The lower standard eggs will enter the food chain untraceable and unlabeled. They have much higher instances of listeria and salmonella not to mention the welfare of the chickens. The only thing which might stop certain food manufacturers doing this is if they sell into the EU where they will have to declare the Ukrainian eggs and they would not be allowed to sell their products in the EU. However, there is nothing to stop this in the UK market.

I have to admit, I am struggling to have much sympathy with farmers given the number of UKIP and Brexit signs all over farmers fields. They were told this would happen but voted it through anyway (and we haven't even got to farm subsidies yet). I do reel sorry for those who voted remain and we're shouted down when they tried to raise this.

At some moment pint some hapless junior minister will have to be wheeled out to explain why there is an outbreak of salmonella and how it links to their trade policies, but don't hold your breath on them taking responsibility.

But still, blue passports eh

Amortentia · 13/10/2020 16:22

@SerendipityJane

I've never seen a government so deeply in it for themselves and their cronies.

Clearly you've never lived in some African or South American countries.

True, but there is no British gov you could compare this lot to.
Amortentia · 13/10/2020 16:25

@TheAugury

I already buy British use the Co op or your local butcher.
That's the problem, when import standards go and we no longer comply with EU standards this will be meaningless.
keeprocking · 13/10/2020 16:25

This kind of programme always reminds me of 'The Use and Abuse of Statistics', tell me what you want to 'prove' and I can find the figures to 'prove' it. No doubt a production team with a different agenda could produce a similarly thought provoking programme.

Baaaahhhhh · 13/10/2020 16:26

On the upside Americans are desperate for high welfare quality British meat. So all our brilliant stuff will go over there, and all their crap stuff will come over here. Marvellous.

SerendipityJane · 13/10/2020 16:28

The lower standard eggs will enter the food chain untraceable and unlabeled. They have much higher instances of listeria and salmonella not to mention the welfare of the chickens.

If you feed all the parameters surrounding Brexit into a machine learning algorithm, and go away for a weekend, you can get the answer that Brexit was backed by a cabal of companies that make the plastic trays for holding eggs that we didn't used to need in the UK, but very soon will.

Luckily I disabled the link to my trading platform, or I would own a few of those companies by now.

Jente · 13/10/2020 16:30

Tories gonna Tory. This country never learns.

SerendipityJane · 13/10/2020 16:31

@Baaaahhhhh

On the upside Americans are desperate for high welfare quality British meat. So all our brilliant stuff will go over there, and all their crap stuff will come over here. Marvellous.
Are they ? Are they really ?
NellyJames · 13/10/2020 16:33

@TheAugury, part of what the US want is the removal of labels that indicate country of origin so that may become more difficult.

OP posts:
Sunshiney1981 · 13/10/2020 16:37

Here’s the link for the petition backed by Jamie Oliver on this very topic. It only has 1 million signatures so far, so get signing everyone!

www.countrysideonline.co.uk/back-british-farming/back-british-farming-our-latest-activity/food-standards-petition/

As a remain voter I could cry. I have cried.
This is exactly the sort of thing that made me want to stick with the EU. Why oh why did anyone think a small country like ours would be better off on our own in the modern, global world we live in?? We’ve just left ourselves wide open to low low standards in well, most areas now. Fishing, farming, medicine, the list goes on.

Oh yes I remember, something to do with making Britain ‘Great’ again, or blue passports or sovereignty or something.... sorry could any Brexiteer remind me again why they actually voted to leave? Was it the lies plastered all over Boris’ red bus about how much we’d save the NHS?

Baaaahhhhh · 13/10/2020 16:37

inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/brexit-us-trade-deal-chlorinated-chicken-waitrose-tesco-sainsburys-aldi-lidl-456750

If the supermarkets won't buy it, it has no value. I suppose I am an optimist, and hope that they are true to their word.

SerendipityJane · 13/10/2020 16:38

True, but there is no British gov you could compare this lot to.

I don't know, the mob that gerrymandered the vote against Charles I might be a fair comparison - especially when considering the shitstorm that followed. If we're lucky Brexit won't last as long as the Commonwealth.

NellyJames · 13/10/2020 16:39

@keeprocking, did you watch it?
If you did then you must have listened to the very worried American scientists who are daily finding a disturbingly large amount of dangerous bacteria in the food for sale in their shops.

OP posts:
derxa · 13/10/2020 16:43

I do reel sorry for those who voted remain and we're shouted down when they tried to raise this. Well we did and so did most sensible farmers who I've talked to. But there's no point of living in the past. We will just soldier on.

ConferencePear · 13/10/2020 17:09

derma wrote
But there's no point of living in the past. We will just soldier on.

I agree - there's no point in going over the Brexit argument again because it doesn't get us anywhere. We need to concentrate on what we can do about it now. I've signed the petition and written to my conservative MP and told him not to ask for my vote next time. Is there anything else I can usefully do ?

SerendipityJane · 13/10/2020 17:15

Is there anything else I can usefully do ?

Learn to farm ?

Scrowy · 13/10/2020 17:25

@Tellmetruth4

Didn’t most of the farmers and fishermen vote for Brexit? There were leave signs all over the countryside.
No.

The farmer's vote roughly reflected the national split. The farming press and farming organisations repeatedly tried to encourage the industry to vote remain.

As with the national vote the vocal slight majority shouted and expressed their opinion loudly. They were the ones most likely to go the extra mile to promote leave (Signs in fields) rather than advocating to keep the status quo. Remain voting farmers didn't often feel comfortable expressing their views in public.

MintyMabel · 13/10/2020 17:26

Well, quite. Only we didn't do Covid to ourselves.

And Covid will go away.

Newjez · 13/10/2020 17:28

@Defenbaker

YANBU, this programme was an eye opener for me and has really upset me.

I voted Brexit for many reasons, one of them being that I wanted our government to use some of the money saved to support UK farmers and produce more of our own food. UK farmers cannot compete on a level playing field in Europe, as UK farmers have higher animal welfare standards than other EU countries so they have higher costs. I also hoped that they would stop the export of live calves to mainland Europe (which used to travel via Dover but now have a much longer, more arduous journey via Ireland), because the calves fattened for veal over on mainland Europe are raised in terrible conditions that are outlawed in the UK. Now I find that we might be trading with a country that has even worse welfare and hygiene practices than mainland Europe, with pressure to stop labelling the country of origin on packaging - I really hope this doesn't happen.

People who voted Brexit had no way of knowing that 4 years later there would still be no workable trade deal with the EU. Brexit is unprecedented and is going to have unforseen consequences, but I still believe that in the long term the UK will be better off cutting free from the EU. Only time will tell.

Seriously!!!
RubyViolet · 13/10/2020 17:30

Signed. This is scary.

Cam77 · 13/10/2020 17:31

The biggest tragedy is that a good 10% of Brexiters now realize they were duped. The whole UK economic cake will be smaller thanks to crap trade deals and tariffs. Shop prices will spiral. Real incomes will fall. The top 0.1% will enrich themselves thanks to deregulting employment laws and worker protection. City types will have fun raking it in in futures against the pound. Immigration will hardly be affected as nonEU will have to be drafted in record numbers to stop certain industries collapsing. Not a very bright plan really, too late now though!

MintyMabel · 13/10/2020 17:31

Didn’t most of the farmers and fishermen vote for Brexit? There were leave signs all over the countryside.

Not the ones I know of. They wanted CFP and CAP to be overhauled. They didn’t want it thrown out.

It's OK, leave voters knew what they were voting for. They expected this and they'll have comprehensive plans to ensure we don't suffer from it

Ditto the ones who threw a tizzy when Theresa May said EU rules would just be adopted by the U.K. in their entirety at first to avoid any issues like this. I’m sure those people have a plan to protect consumers too.

MintyMabel · 13/10/2020 17:32

I voted Brexit for many reasons

Just interested, what did you think the UK should do with the Irish border?

Chuggington2 · 13/10/2020 17:38

I don’t have to watch it I know what’s coming and it’s awful. The end of any food safety protection and welfare standards for animals breed for food. It’s really scary.

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