Is a No Deal exit really a possibility?

[StorminaBcup]

Is there really a risk of a No Deal for Britain leaving Europe or are they making it sound even more of an utter shambles (if that's possible), so that whatever deal we leave with won't be quite so bad in comparison?

Being pedantic, any last minute solution would need to be found by 22.59 on 29 March 2019, as it will happen at midnight CET, which is an hour ahead of the UK.

The UK did indeed introduce the Equal Pay Act shortly before it joined in 1973 - but it is arguable that we needed to in order to be able to join, as equal pay for men and women was one of the EEC's founding principles (in 1957 - so significantly pre-dating the Equal Pay Act). The principle of equal pay for work of equal value came from the EU.

@Ta1kin
Indeed had the 3 month rule actually been used much of the mess would not have happened. Mind you the UK would have had to find more people to pick veg in the rain for low wages, obviously too difficult for the snowflakes.
Wasn't it a certain Ms May in charge of the HO around that time?

To be fair on May wash my mouth out with soap , much as I'd like to put all the blame on her, this had been the fault of successive governments, pre-dating her. In particular, Blair chose not to put a brake on the Eastern European accession countries, unlike most of the rest of the EU. Hence the particular attraction of the UK. Exacerbated of course by the fact that the UK doesn't implement the 3 month rule.

@1tisILeClerc - I got told off on here for daring to call Leave voters snowflakes. Good on you.

Lol at @Bellinisurge
I have no idea if they are snowflakes or not.
I know that they are not analytical
I asked you not to use that word on the AIBU thread to try to keep it on that board.

We all need to remember that

• NO facts we give will make them change their minds
• headlong confrontation will make them hunker down, not buckle

All we can hope to achieve is that they accept the change when the politicians backpedal at high speed
ideally without rioting on the streets

I was referring to anyone who is too precious to pick fruit or veg, meaning that the work has to be done by others from the far side of Europe to do it. I wasn't referring to leavers.

LeClerc
My former car wash man was Kosovan.
He pointed out that veg picking is utterly backbreaking.
The young come over for seven months, earn all they can and then retreat back to warmer climes to rest their backs for five months.
It has been done by seasonal migrant workers since the 30's.

I know it is horrible work. My house overlooked a field and at 'harvest' time a group of about a dozen workers would arrive at about 7:30 in the morning and work through till maybe 8:00 in the evening to fulfill the order for the supermarket, working in heavy rain or hail, harvesting cauliflowers , leeks or whichever was grown at the time.
It would have been interesting to know how much they received in pay.

Leavers have argued that this vital work can be done by Brits. We may not get to import people to do it when FOM goes. And apparently we can be self sufficient in agriculture so don't need to import much food from the EU. It doesn't add up.

I physically couldn't do that job. You need to be able to work very fast, and my dexterity isn't good enough. I bet many people would struggle.

As an ex-veg picker (from East Anglia), I feel I should actually fight their corner. The UK workers have been priced out of the market. The unscrupulous Gang masters (I shan't name names but one rhymes with Heston and ends in Andrews), employed Romanians / Polish at a rate of 50p per hour. They were then charged for petrol and accommodation which left them in 'debt'. Their accommodation was usually a 2-2 down terraced house somewhere around Downham Market / Kings Lynn / Swaffham and housed anywhere between 8-15 'workers'.

The gangs that I used to work in (as a student), with the locals, varied in age between the 15/16 (me) and 68 (a lovely lady called Doris). We were paid £3.60 per hour on a day rate or a piece rate set by the gang master for setting lettuces, picking lettuces / cauliflowers / cabbages, strawberries. All manual. I was really envious of those who got to sit on the picking machine and just bag up whatever was picked up on the trailer. The work was back-breaking but great when the sun was shining but absolutely no one can afford to work for 50p an hour. And this was back in '94/'95. It wasn't uncommon for the polish girls to have sex with the males during their breaks to make extra money.

So as much as I disagree with the leave voters, in cases such as this I can competely understand why they have voted the way they have.

Car wash guy arrived as a teenage refugee from the Balkan conflict
you know, that time when Western Europe absorbed 1,000,000 refugees in the space of two years pretty seamlessly
Brits get benefits so do not have to work.
East Europeans have no "benefit culture" so come here to work.

Yes, the have pushed down the wages of the low skilled
( if a Mexican who cannot speak English takes your job, that says more about you than him )
but the stranglehold of the supermarkets over pricing has resulted in unsustainable working conditions.

Wages can only go up if food prices do
A LOT

cross post
but actually arriving at the same point .... prices driven down by bosses
exactly why J RM supports Brexit

Really interesting @StorminaBcup . Thanks very much for that post .

There's a BBC transcript of a documentary about it here if anyone's interested.

Thank you Storm.
You have rightly identified a very significant problem, that is essentially illegal activity (or it should be illegal) by some gangmasters.
I think that in at least some other EU countries there would be massive fines for employers who do not pay a suitable rate. Having ID cards for all workers and proper supervision of workers is also a part of this.
Yes it make food more expensive but you could reasonably argue that it is too cheap in the UK.

The 'workers' do have ID. They are charged anything between £150 - upwards to show they can work here 'legally'. The papers are forged, the Police, immigration officials and Gang masters all know it but it's a futile game of cat and mouse. It costs thousands to deport people, it takes too long and by the time they manage to deport there's another 10 people here to take their place.

You are already describing what I suspected and it suggests a significant failure of the police and UK immigration which is not really an EU issue.
There was a report highlighted by another MNetter about the 'appropriation' of ID and security information from the EU which from what you are saying (and I don't disbelieve you) that the police and immigration cannot even correctly use the information they have.

Here's a few extracts from the transcripts from June '00 BBC documentary. Apologies for the length!

For each illegal person we employ Mark gets a fine in court of £5000, but we still do it because we take the risk.

KESTUS
It's £100 for you to work. Have you got any ID for work permit.

SERGEI
No, I haven't.

KESTUS
It will cost £80. I will take the £100 and share it with the company. You will be working officially. I can get you work even tomorrow from 7 o'clock in the morning.

KENYON
The supermarkets may be three times removed from the labour which helps fill their shelves, but their power and influence does affect most aspects of the food chain right through to the gang-masters

The temptation for gangmasters to employ illegals is that you can pay them less and work them harder. Now the supermarkets of course wouldn't endorse that, but it's their activities right at the top of the food chain which can encourage it. If the supermarkets want more, riper, bigger, sooner, the food chain snaps into action. There's a ripple effect from the shelves out to the fields, as there is with the current supermarket price war.

Q
So when you get sent out of this country, will you try to come back again?

WORKER
Yes, of course.

Q
How many times will you try?

WORKER
When I win.

COLIN HARBIN
HEAD OF IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT
We're probably only scratching the surface of it at the present time but there is certainly a lot of it going on, and we know that there are certain parts of industry that does take advantage of this type of labour, the agricultural industry is just one.

You can understand why people vote Leave in those circumstances - except that this is what their cheer leaders like the Rees-Mogg's, Davis, etc. who want a Singapore style low wage economy, would like to see more of. Enforcing decent wages and living standards is just so much 'red tape' to them. Deporting the workers isn't really the solution, handing out stiff fines and prison sentences to those profiting from the situation would be part of one, whilst paying and housing the workers properly.

What do we expect to happen if we do Leave? Those Poles and Romanians who now still have a chance of making a break from this sort of slavery and getting home via cheap flights, will be replaced by those from south east Asia and sub - Saharan Africa, with much greater difficulty facing them if they try to get away.

And Brexit will cure what exactly
Tesco will pay the same price for iceberg lettuce
cos they can

StorminaBcup what you describe is appalling. I believe it happens and I have spoken to people in East Anglia who confirm this.

BUT it is not an EU issue, it is a bunch of bastards exploiting vulnerable people issue. If we leave the EU they will source the vulnerable people from elsewhere and carry on unless the U.K. puts serious effort in to stopping this.

This needs to be stopped, leaving the EU won't help it will just change the where. Chinese cockle pickers dying in Morecambe or Lithuanian's picking veg in Norfolk the gang masters need to be prosecuted. We need the EU to help us stop this.

People should be angry about this but we need to focus the anger on the exploiters not the exploited.

Brexit won't 'cure' anything. We'll turn our hand in severing any agreements with countries who next 'take our jobs' and pillage our country of benefits and resources. We are an island of island makers.

Moussemoose I agree it isn't an EU issue, I've derailed my own thread slightly by illustrating why a proportion of voters were motivated to support the leave campaign.