Strawberry shock -- latest

Regular readers of the Remainer press will know about the cultural symbolic significance of the English (ie grown in England) strawberry. It was a major early fear that Brexit would lead to a decline of that symbol of English identity -- watching Wimbledon on TV and adding to the realism with a punnet of cheap(er) English strawberries. Why oh why were the ignorant racist proles taking these simple domestic pleasures away from us?

Then last year there was a glut in the fields and in the shops despite all the fears. This year it seems more mixed, says the Observer:

Bumper British strawberry crop may rot as EU pickers stay away

Fruit farmers fear loss of summer workers to higher wages in Germany and Romania

That's the trouble with abandoning the EC -- wages might have to rise and conditions get better as the reserve army of wage labour is no longer 'free' to follow the race to the bottom.

The Observer writes a balanced report despite the scary headline:

thanks to the good weather earlier in the spring, this year’s crop arrived some two weeks ahead of schedule...But while there appears to be sufficient numbers of workers to pick the berries at the start of this potentially bumper season, whether they will be here at its end is becoming a key concern for the nation’s fruit farmers....Farms have started poaching pickers from each other. “What we are seeing for the first time is that workers are coming over and moving on to another farm shortly after arriving,” said Stephanie Maurel, chief executive of Concordia, one of the largest providers of labour. [Can't we stop them, say by imposing some sort of contractual labour obligation to the master?]

And then an insightful piece for those who thought wages alone were the only issue in going somewhere to work [ie Remainers]

This year Germany has introduced new tax incentives for foreign workers which has led to fears that many Romanians may turn their back on British farms, having provided the majority of its fruit pickers in recent years. “We’ve always competed with Germany but the UK has been more attractive – we have table-top, off-the-ground production. In Germany a lot of picking is done on your knees,” said Nicholas Marston, chairman of trade body British Summer Fruits. “A lot of the crop is not covered in Germany. If it rains, you don’t get any work so in the past the UK has been seen as a more attractive place to come. But now the competition for people right across Europe is hotting up.”

Of course, your foreign worker is also far more superstitious and fearful:

The fallout from Brexit, which has left many eastern European workers feeling that they are more welcome in other European member states, is also a concern.  

And nasty and calculating in that sly peasant way they have:

an expanding Romanian economy has seen fewer workers leave their home. A sizable drop in the number of workers returning year on year has also become apparent in figures collated by the NFU... farmers have been working very hard to make sure their farms are attractive to workers with better rates of pay, bonuses and more attractive accommodation.

Caravans in the corners of fields or a sleeping bag on the floor of a disused barn aren't bloody good enough for them! Luckily, there might be another reserve of labour elsewhere:

Several EU member states go further afield for labour. Spain’s agricultural sector employs a large number of Moroccans while Germany employs 60,000 Ukranians to work in its fields....Marston predicted that the UK would one day follow suit