Above, top, a fruit farm in Kent and bottom, new houses being built somewhere in the UK. The relevance will become clear.
Imagine the telephone rings. You pick it up. The caller identifies themselves as a customer service representative of The Thingamajig Company Limited. They then ask, “When do want us to deliver the thingamajig?”
You are nonplussed! What is a thingamajig! You decide to ask your other half, “Dearest One, there’s a chap on the ‘phone, asking about the delivery of a thingamajig!”
“Tell him Friday afternoon. I’ll be in then.”
“What have you gone and bought?” you ask.
Your other half explains that it is a carved wooden box made of mahogany with an inlaid brass engraving; “Thingamajigs”.
“It’s just a box Dear, about a yard long, a foot wide and two feet wide. Jeremy Corbyn has got one. They’re made in India and the cabinet work is exquisite, and for £100, it’s unbeatable value as the craftsmanship is superb! It’s a funny box Dear. It’s where we can keep the thingamajigs! In other words, anything we’ve got that will fit in the box.”
And that of course is precisely what a thingamajig is!” Anything you want it to be!
Now let us turn to Mrs May’s conundrum. BREXIT.
As we know, Mrs May was described as campaign for the Remain side. Now we can generally divide these into two categories. There are the Remainians mostly found in the Tory and Labour parties who are/were generally, on balance, in favour of the UK’s membership of the EU. People like Anna Soubry. Then there are the Remainiacs. These are mainly to be found in the Liberal Democrat and Scottish National parties and are people like Tim Farron and Nicola Sturgeon. Mrs May however can be described as a Remainishite.
As each long day ends and Mrs May retires to the relaxing ambience of her living room and her husband’s company one could speculate that they might have on a wall a dartboard and on that dartboard, a photograph of a certain N. Farage!
This is because Nigel has given Mrs May two things; the first is the office of Prime Minister, something that would likely have been filled by a certain Rt. Hon. G. Osborne, PC, CH, MP. after the Chameleon had retired at a time of his choosing and not the British People’s! The second of course is a Queen sized headache!
This is because Nigel delivered victory to the Brexiteers by promising “an Australian style points based [immigration] system!” Mrs May will of course be fully aware that it was Nigel’s promise that upon Brexit, immigration could and would be controlled and the country would no longer receive EU migrants at the rate of 100,000 + a year!
Mrs May will also be aware that were she to negotiate a Brexit deal that gave the UK the ability to introduce the “Australian style points [actually it’s a quota based system] system” then the UK economy would experience a very significant downturn and that the result could be that Mrs May or her successor would end up having to go into another coalition with a certain T. Farron! We can be sure that this is an eventuality Mrs May is determined to avoid!
So Mrs May appears to be between a rock (she has to deliver on the voters concerns about immigration) and a very hard place (a UK recession)! We can be sure that Mrs May has put her thinking cap on! Which is just as well given who she has appointed as Foreign Secretary and Brexit Secretary!
Mrs May understands that MOST of the EU immigration problem centres on the low skilled seasonal EU workers from such as Bulgaria. These industrious hard working folk travel to the UK to work the long hours performing the hard work of soft fruit picking. These jobs are jobs that unemployed British workers do not wish to take up. In the absence of any other employment they prefer to remain on the dole. This of course does not stop these people from complaining about these Bulgarians taking jobs that could and should be offered to British workers – with their exception due to their back – to which they are a veritable martyr!
Thus the loss of jobs to UK workers is an illusion – because these folks don’t want the jobs. In other words it is the employment equivalent of a thingamajig! A thingamajig can be anything you want it to be! It can even be an imaginary thing, something that does not exist in reality, like a unicorn or an unemployed British person taking up a vacancy to pick soft fruit!
So MAYBE, just MAYBE an idea is forming in the Prime Minister’s mind.
Were the UK to Brexit on the EFTA+EEA basis – which of course is the ONLY practical option – use of the Liechtenstein compromise, which whilst not being “the Australian style points based system” WILL be able to stop the thousands of EU migrants coming to the UK to pick soft fruit! This would have immediate and noticeable effects! It would reduce significantly the pressure on the Education, Heath and Housing sectors. There would be less Bulgarian spoken on British streets. That these effects would be visible would mean that the E, D, C2 and C1 Labour voters who voted Brexit would be able to see that they are getting some of what they voted for!
Of course this would have consequences for the UK’s fruit farmers. They would close their operations down. This would not significantly effect UK unemployment as the unemployed did not take up these jobs!
As to what to do with the land. Many former fruit farmers will want to sell their land to developers to build houses! These houses will of course be necessary. Not just to provide much needed new homes, but also to take up the vast quantity of money being printed by the ever generous Mr Mark Carney!
Our very much esteemed Canadian friend is currently printing money like there’s no tomorrow! If he keeps on like this, there won’t be. A tomorrow that is!
Herewith a report on the prospects for the British soft fruit industry: https://www.mail.com/int/entertainment/lifestyle/4576196-slim-pickings-without-eu-laborers-wholl-harvest-uk.html#.1272-stage-hero1-1
Speaking the Truth unto the Nation
