Brexit- 8 years on
August 25, 2024, 11:07 am , by Richard Lutz
Richard Lutz finds that all’s not fine on Loch Fyne
Driving through Argyllshire, on the west coast of Scotland, is a curvy affair. Round the sea loch, over a hill, through a forest, down a glen, past a Bronze Age cairn, under the shadow of a looming mountain.
Rain is a curtain sweeping the windscreen. We decide to stop at The Loch Fyne Oyster Bar. It’s a popular place, on the go since the late seventies. It has delivered superior seafood for decades now, a long established eatery.
It’s a Tuesday and the staff shrug and say the restaurant is closed today. This- in the short and busy summer season, a two month period that can make or break Highland businesses that lean on travelling trade.
The restaurant can’t find staff. It had to make decisions- which of two calendar days the restaurant doors would shut. Owners picked Tuesday and Wednesday.
On the way back from the west coast, I stop again. It’s still tipping down outside. The restaurant is open and busy. But half the tables are off limits. It has to curtail dining because of these shortages. ‘We used to get workers from the Continent’ an employee said. ‘Not now.’
He said the overseas staff, before Brexit, were hard working, happy to be in Britain, wanted the seasonal work before going home to school, other jobs, families. It kept the oyster bar open. It keep alot of places open.
But the 2016 Brexit vote slammed the door. The UK decided to leave the European Union. That meant a clampdown on overseas workers. Local Argyll towns, which are spread out along the rugged landscape, can’t fill the vacant jobs.
The Loch Fyne Oyster Bar tale is replicated all around Britain. Pre Brexit, it was normal to have Continenal staff in restaurants and hotels. They were from Poland, Latvia, Spain… the list goes on. They said they were attracted to the UK- whether in London or remote Scotland- because of the decent pay, its culture, its terrain, its history, its access to vernacular English. Many returned year after year.
Then along comes Brexit. The door closed.
Since 2019, more than 120,000 EU hospitality workers have left the UK….
According to the trade magazine Hospitality and Catering News, the Office for National Statistics reported that in 2019, ‘EU nationals made up 12.3% of the UK’s hospitality workforce. However, post-Brexit immigration policies have made it more challenging, and/or very costly for these people, and their potential employers to obtain the necessary visas, leading to a substantial reduction in their numbers.’
Since 2019, 120,000 EU workers, says the magazine, have left the UK food trade and hotel industry, contributing to a significant skills gap in the sector.
To add flesh to the bone, a recent report for London politicians said there are nearly two million fewer jobs overall in the UK due to Brexit – with almost 300,000 fewer jobs in the capital.
The restaurant and hotel trade has been the hardest hit. Especially in rural areas such as Loch Fyne where there just isn’t a deep employment pool such as in big cities like London, Birmingham or Glasgow.
New York Times reporter Mark Landler writes: ‘(Boris) Johnson was able to get Brexit done but it failed to deliver tangible economic dividends. As many experts predicted, Britain’s departure from the E.U.’s vast single market hindered trade and stunted economic growth.’
And a recent Financial Times columnist noted: ‘It’s almost as if a substantial body of young people just upped and left.. so we now employ more Brits on higher pay. … their competence is often lower and few regard hospitality as a career. Service has become more patchy.’
It’s made worse because men and women from remote areas, such as Argyllshire, are pulled away to urban areas where access to jobs is easier. For the Loch Fyne bosses who, in different forms have supplied fish around the world and invited people like me to fill a table, it’s a nightmare. Brexit is a busted flush, an empty plate, a sign that says Closed.
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David Rendall
The negative effects of Brexit are endless. Even its most ardent supporters have still not come up with a single positive. Just have to hope that Starmer will soon shed his paranoia about red wall racists and start a serious attempt to get us back into the Customs Union and the Single Market – have to hope too that EU members will forgive us for all the aggro and cost we have caused them over the last 8 years..
Tony Fitzpatrick
Agree absolutely. I think tho’ with Starmer and Co there’s a real and ongoing fear of the Mail, Sun, Express and Telegraph…the Brexit delivery tools…?? I can’t see that changing any time soon…but will try to remain hopeful. Polls are saying the folly is dawning on people and as travel to and from the EU is hit with more red tape later this year and next, frustration and realisation will deepen.
Alan Holland
Blimey Dave it must have been tough fulminating for 8 years!
Hope all good out there.
Jim B
A similar problem in the States, and definitely in Maine. While we did not have Brexit, we still have nativist and reactionary policies that have found an audience. To borrow from an old song, “when will they ever learn….”
Carole Campbell
Another Brexit bonus
Robin McCrindle/Head Chef
It’s a bloody hospitality apocalypse
Alan Holland
I never cease to be amazed at people’s enthusiasm to have every aspect of their lives legislated for. Any opportunity to be free of excessive interference in the freedom of the citizen is one you grasp in my view. Including leaving the EU. What a shower of anti democratic autocracy that is.
There are 9 million working age people out of work in the U.K. If the jobs were made sufficiently attractive people would pay them.
Pay decent wages and charge accordingly.
Right. Time for the usual middle class pile on.
David C
a shame that so many fit and healthy young British people are facilitated by recent governments to avoid the onerous task of getting a job. Strange that this number of British work-shy individuals is very similar to the number of of foreign workers we deem neccessary to import.
Di Ward
In Herefordshire, it is the fruit and vegetable farmers who are
suffering from the loss of East European pickers. The pub and hotel trade
too has been hit, with many not opening for several days each week even in
peak season. What a complete and utter disaster!
Alan Holland
It’s not that there aren’t people to do the work. Imported labour from Europe couldn’t claim welfare, liked the terms on offer so worked.
Meanwhile those on welfare watched them. Everyone must acknowledge that situation was untenable. Now rewards for the work or the consequences of not working don’t motivate those on welfare to do it. So.
1.Force people to take the jobs or lose welfare
2. Reduce welfare payments to make the work more attractive.
3. Make the work more attractive by putting up wages.
Or a combination of the three.
Lorna G
We used to go to the wee cafe inside the garden centre often (oyster bar was full! I really do miss that drive!
I think Arran is a bit like that too. One never know when eateries are open and for how long!!
Laurel Rice
Bring on the Scottish independence vote!
Clive2
The same all over Cornwall……even in summer holidays, places closed for lack of staff. Bonkers!
RJL
There seems to be convincing evidence that the sectors marked by seasonality: hospitality and crop picking have been affected negatively by Brexit. But Brexit or no Brexit there has always been a problem with aligning areas where there are unemployed people and places where there are jobs. It was true in the boom times of great cities like Manchester and Glasgow where rural migrant labour lived in appalling, degrading housing and it’s true today when many hospitality workers are forced to live in inadequate accommodation. That’s the reason why governments need to develop good regional development policies.
Tony Fitzpatrick
Couldn’t agree more. UK governments have never been serious about regional policy… the best way to address regional disparities including training, employment and inward investment mismatch.
“Levelling Up” was no more than a slogan and a ‘marginal seats’ policy with no evidence base behind it.
Mary Hill
Not surprised about the Brexit jobs crisis.
Seems inevitable there will be a movement to rejoin!
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