The sacking of hardworking and long-serving crew by P&O and their replacement by low waged and non-unionised labour’s just the start of the journey. For Brexit Britain has reached its first port as it heads for Singapore on Thames and there’s worst places ahead, so baton down the hatches for stormy waters are coming.
It’s the direction of travel on which the country has been set by the media oligarchs, motley crew of hedge fund managers and other malcontents who lied and colluded to deliver Brexit. Now we’re seeing where they’re taking us and it’s not sunny uplands but a nasty brutal place.
It wasn’t just what was done but how it was done that was despicable. This was pre-planned as the Tory Government were told, albeit only the day before, but it’s the sort of actions they knew would happen or at very least must have been foreseeable in the new glorious free market empire they sought. It was Murdoch and Eddie Shah rolled into one and then some.
If that’s how P&O treat their staff on ships, how will their principal owner DP World treat those on shore at the Freeport they’re seeking. Freeports which have been trumpeted as a blessing of Brexit, yet P&O staff in Ireland and other EU ports have been spared the cruelty imposed in Britain.
This is just the thin edge of the wedge as the superrich seek to create the new low regulation but in reality, a low pay and low social protection society. That’s other than for them, as they’ll make money hand over fist but through other people’s misery.
And there’s more to come as others will claim they need to follow suit to remain competitive, and all as our society races to the bottom and the welfare state and rights we once cherished and blessed are left far in the distance. It wont stop with the abandonment of those long held principles or social provisions, as the other consequence of Brexit is what we’ll inherit from new trade deals.
So far fears have been focussed on chlorinated chicken from the USA or being swamped by cheap Australian lamb. They’re unpalatable for most of us and the threat to our farmers is severe. But there’s even worse that could be hidden in below the top line deals. For pesticides remain a huge threat. Both USA and Australia have significantly lower standards than the post EU ones we still operate too.
But looming large on pesticides is India where Liz Truss is desperately seeking a deal. They already use pesticides which are entirely unacceptable here and the threat isn’t just in food but in fertilisers. Tales abound of developing nations rejecting Indian foodstuffs as unacceptable for human consumption. Both farmers and consumers are threatened by what might come, but so’s our natural environment where further devastation could be unleashed with a diminution of our standards. What happens to the bees and butterflies then?