Brexit pains

I am struggling for titles of these Brexit posts, so forgive me.

Yesterday, there was a commons select committee on Brexit and the various labour shortages, where the chief of the RHA, I think, was asked about the short term visa scheme. And his reply was that it would be the scheme designed if the designer wanted it to fail.

In that visas should be for a year, at least, and a few months isn't going to fix the issues, or give time for the underlying causes to be fixed.

Also, that the tier system of skills for immigration, of jobs that help get visas are geared to level three and up, where HGV driers are level two. The Government needs to recognise that some jobs are important not because of the amount of education the person might havem but how important that job is to the economy.

And there, is the rub.

Rather than stating at with looking at what jobs the UK needs and assessing how many migrants/EU nationals needed to fill the gap, the Government started, as always, with the dogmatic position of trying to stop all migration.

Thing is, with the points system, leaving better paid jobs for migrants who qualify, it means the lower skilled low paid jobs will be for UK citizens.

The Government will say they are aiming for a high pay high skill economy, but really this is total bollocks.

Andother thread I saw was on fruit pickers, how this is seen as low skilled but is anything but. An industry that pays piecework, the more you pick the more you earn, in the EU teams of pickers work in a group travelling around the EU working a week here, two weeks there through the spring, summer and autumn, earning money as they go. It takes a long time to work at a speed to be able to earn a minimum wage, let anoe beyond that, and as some crops have a harvest window of a coule of weeks, high mobility is essential. Something, clearly, that ending freedom of movement has put an end to.

Anyone with any common sense and a basic understanding of what is required in so-called low skilled jobs could have told you that migration is critical.

I worked in a chicken factory for five and a half years. It was dirty, cold hard work. I ached for the first few weeks, then got used to it. But it was never pleasant. And all the time there was the drive to increase prduction so to drive down costs. Such forces continued after I left the industry, but prices in fresh and frozen poulty have barely risen, corner cutting has to come from somewhere.

As a basic economic fact, if average prices increase, wages increase too. You might earn more moeny, but good, energy, housing all costs more. There are ways of increasing pay for poor people, but such a plan is beyond the current Government who says what it takes to get through the latest news cycle.

Which is why having JOhnson announce plans for the UK to be energy neutral by 2050 is laughable, he couldn't plan Brexit, is only policy, and will have littler personal interest in something that will bear fruit long after he has left office.

Thing is, if the UK really left the EU to enable the country to have higher wages, then it was based on a lie. Another one. Other EU countries have higher minimum wages than the UK, and there was nothing stopping the UK from raising ours, it is changing the excuse to match the evidence.