The UK is collapsing – and the threatened pig cull is just a symptom
Boris Johns- oh no! This is just a pig! But if Johnson’s fate was the same as that awaiting up to 150,000 porkers, he would undoubtedly have thought twice before telling all those porkIES about Brexit.
Who thought the sunlit uplands, post-Brexit, would look like this?
https://twitter.com/David__Osland/status/1445671296369524744
And now we’re being told that potentially 100,000 pigs will be killed – not for their meat, but because there is a nationwide shortage of butchers and abattoir workers.
According to Sky News,
The crisis has been blamed on an exodus of eastern European workers, many of whom returned to their home countries after Covid-19 travel restrictions were eased but have not returned.
That has meant the abattoirs where they worked are operating at as much as 20% below capacity – unable to take as many pigs as normal – leaving farms overcrowded.
The UK faces a shortage of pigs in blankets this Christmas as a lack of butchers threatens to disrupt supplies of pork, industry leaders have said.
Over to our pigs-in-blankets correspondent, Katy Brand:
https://twitter.com/KatyFBrand/status/1445425874828988419
At least nobody is trying to blame this crisis on Covid-19.
The shortage of butchers and abattoir workers represents a significant threat to the UK economy.
How much is a pig worth? How about 100,000 – or 150,000, as we’re now hearing the losses rumoured to be?
A lot of money, This Writer would reckon.
My neighbour farms 2500 cows over 3 farms. He voted for Brexit. Today he shared his concern for other farmers and the future of farming. His words were “it’s all very disturbing and costs are spiralling”. He regrets voting for Brexit
— James Rees (@JamesRees_PCC) October 6, 2021
And James Rees’s neighbour isn’t the only one. Here‘s Peter Mortimer, 73, whose pigs aren’t ready for slaughter and will therefore miss the currently-mooted cull, but who
said rising costs and a lack of local labour were among issues that had made his business in Metfield, Suffolk, “unsustainable”.
“It’s about time he [Boris Johnson] realised action is needed immediately to sort this problem out,” said Mr Mortimer.
“He doesn’t understand or doesn’t want to understand the situation – he’s lost the plot.”
Asked why he was bowing out, he said: “There have been a few issues, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was that I needed to employ some more staff, and I advertised locally and I got no response at all.
“The job involves getting your hands dirty – like abattoir work – and people don’t want to get involved.
“We’ve also got high feed prices – wheat passed £200 a ton on Friday, and its unsustainable to feed pigs, with the prices we’re getting [for them], for any length of time.”
The knock-on effects are frightening. The abattoirs are losing money, as is every other business along the chain from farmer to plate.
And those of us who enjoy a nice slice of pork, or bacon, or gammon, or sausage, or – yes – pigs in blankets will end up going without.
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson and his Brexiteer friends are still saying Brexit will bring enormous benefits to the whole nation.
I have a doubt, though.
How will our businesses prosper if they have all gone bust because of Boris Johnson’s short-sightedness?
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I,m getting tired of all this talk of “lazy” British workers not wanting to work outside or “getting their hands dirty”.
I worked with a lot of young men/teenagers over many years and I was struck by the number who completely DREADED the idea of an indoor job sitting down. They WANTED outdoor jobs, rough/tough scruffy jobs where they could crash around having a laugh with their mates. Everything else was just like being stuck in a classroom.
But to get these workers you need to pay decent money and they have to have reliable transport to get to farms or food processing plants.
Not easy when the work is found in sparsely populated rural areas and most young people are to be found in towns and cities as they have been forced out of the countryside by rising house prices and the loss of council housing.
The UK slaughters 10 million pigs every year. Many millions more are slaughtered around the globe. That is the real tragedy. Even if you don’t care about the short, brutal lives that these and other sentient beings lead or their terrible suffering when they are killed in the abattoir, you need to understand that animal agriculture is a major component in climate change, deforestation, pollution, etc. We can each do something positive about this by going vegan. Eating animal products is bad for human health as all independent, peer-reviewed, scientific, nutritional research confirms. Allowing your stomach or taste-buds to over-rule your brain is madness. The way that homo sapiens treat other sentient beings is analogous with the way that the 1% treat the rest of us. It’s a case of might is right. If you’re a genuine socialist and unhappy with the way that corporate capitalism rules on behalf of a privileged minority, then please recognise that you’re part of the “elite” species that treats non-humans so appallingly. “Humane” slaughter is a meaningless term and is simply designed to allow people to pretend that slaughtering billions of animals every year is fine and dandy. It’s not; it’s the most important issue that we all face. Do your part and go vegan today. If that’s too much, then at least, please try to go vegetarian. I gave up meat and fish, and started eliminating dairy, in 1981. It’s much easier today. If you do this, you’ll only have one regret: that you didn’t do it sooner. By the way, I love Vox Political; you’re doing a great job (and I have donated on several occasions to your legal fund). But please give serious consideration to my appeal. It’s important for the animals; for the environment and for your health