As well as fuel shortages, Brexit has brought about severe shortages of food, with empty shelves in many supermarkets. You would have thought the Brexiteers would be happy about the prospect of a return to rationing. All it would then take is a few air raids, and their aim of turning Britain into a giant World War 2 theme park will be complete. But as usual, when faced with the consequences of their terrible choice, their response is to pretend that it isn’t happening, or that it only affects la-di-da Remainer shops like Waitrose, thus making it into part of their kulturkampf against those they deem insufficiently British.
Actually, while it is tempting to pin all the blame on Brexit, issues surrounding food security and self-sufficiency have been around since long before then. Britain has not been entirely self-sufficient in food for nearly 200 years. The wartime rationing alluded to earlier,was the result of German U-boats disrupting supplies of imported goods. However, breaking off relations with our nearest and largest trading partners in favour of illusory deals with our former colonies has certainly poured petrol on the flames. Or would have, if there was any petrol left (the need to wean ourselves off fossil fuels is a subject for another blog post.)
The Wessex Regionalists are not autarkists. It is simply not possible to grow enough food to feed ourselves unless there is a major reduction in population . Such a reduction may be a worthy long-term goal, but will take several generations to achieve. However, neither are we uncritical globalists. It is crazy that, for example, pineapples can be picked in Argentina and packaged in Thailand before ending up on a supermarket shelf in Wessex, as per the tweet above.
Rather, we are localists. We believe that food miles should be kept to a minimum. Wessex should provide as much of its own food as possible, and trade for the rest with our closest possible neighbours. If Iceland can produce bananas from geothermal energy, why not Bath or Hotwells?