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Yes, Brexit threatens our food security – but it will stop the human suffering that gives us our foreign produce too

Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

Thursday 08 August 2019 18:37 BST
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Michael Gove says 'no deal' Brexit could lead to higher food prices

Sean O’Grady warns us that post-Brexit logistical chaos means bye-bye to “Tomas the cherry tomato”. Well, maybe that’s no bad thing, considering the human misery and mass pollution involved in his production.

Tomas will have been grown, not by some smiling bucolic Spanish farmer gently tilling his fields, but under the frightening ocean of plastic which has turned the land around Almeria in Spain into an ecological catastrophe a dystopian agricultural future, now!

When it comes to disposing of all this plastic (which needs changing every season or so), too often out of sight is out of mind. Much of it is simply dumped into the landscape to degrade and pollute rivers and the sea. The waste piles up on local beaches and blocks gullies and riverbeds. Barely regulated expansion is threatening the wild and beautiful mountainous region nearby. It’s a very intensive hydroponics system, with empty containers of pesticides and herbicides frequently discarded as well.

But, even worse; with temperatures reaching 45 degrees inside, it’s hard to find local people to work in the poly tunnels. The work is done by the desperate – human slavery and exploitation of vulnerable African illegal immigrant workers is rife. Aren’t there supposed to be EU laws against this? If there are, they are being flouted. It’s just too lucrative to be bothered with the morality of pollution and exploitation.

We don’t see any of this when we pick off a punnet of perfect tomatoes, which have been rushed to our supermarket shelves. But we shouldn’t turn a blind eye. The supermarkets don’t like to talk about it (obviously!). There are plenty of reports on this situation if you look. I recommend watching the fourth episode of journalist Simon Reeve’s excellent series on travelling the edges of the Mediterranean. Prepare to be shocked. Perhaps, like Reeve, we should all be asking a few more searching questions about just how we get such cheap and plentiful food, particularly from Spain, to our tables here in the UK.

Vanya Body
Froxfield

Providing the care they deserve

The ONS mortality report shows that dementia continues to be the leading single cause of death. But, if all cancers were grouped together, then the disease would still top the table. In fact, this is predicted to remain the case for at least the next 15 years.

Unfortunately, despite cancer mortality rates being so high – accounting for over 145,000 (27 per cent) deaths in 2018 – we know that thousands with the disease do not spend their final days as they would wish. Some are in hospital when they would rather be at home, while others face insufficient pain relief, or are unaware of the choices available to them at the end of their lives.

This autumn, as NHS bodies draw up their plans for the next five years, it is critical they set out how people at the end of life can be better identified and get the truly personalised care they need.

Our hardworking NHS professionals do everything in their power to provide care and comfort at this crucial time, but there simply aren’t the numbers of staff with the right skills to have the important and compassionate conversations needed. It is vital that staff are provided with support and training so that they can prompt open discussions as early as possible and ensure people’s wishes are taken into account.

The only certainty in life is death, and we need to ensure that everyone has choice and dignity when it comes.

Adrienne Betteley​​
End of life care specialist adviser at Macmillan Cancer Support

Ideology without power is useless

Labour still struggles as a credible alternative to the Tories. The lack of leadership by Jeremy Corbyn is the main problem. Does he not understand that the Labour Party isn’t there as an ego-stroking exercise for his self-appointed mantle of the keeper of the flame to “true socialism”? Would Corbyn step up his game if losing the next general election meant he too was faced with the prospect of “living” for another five years in dire poverty on welfare benefits under another callous Tory government, as millions are expected to do? Is he not aware that ideology without power is useless?

Francis Kenny
Liverpool

Cowardly leaders

There seems to be a new cunning strategy within the Tory party to keep prime ministers from making statements that can come back and bite them. Theresa May was kept from “normal” members of the public during her disastrous 2017 election campaign by only meeting pre-selected members of her party. (It didn’t help her, did it?)

Similarly, Boris Johnson was largely kept away from the press and public during his bid for Tory leadership, only appearing at stage-managed and apparently tightly scripted events. This continues in office with Johnson pushing his “pitbull” Dominic Cummings forward to make all the public statements and threats on his behalf, while Johnson keeps his hands clean, so to speak.

We are being led over the precipice by cowards and zealots who, because of their own wealth, will not suffer the severe economic consequences imposed on the majority of British people by Brexit.

Kate Hall
Leeds

Biased media

Thank you, Matthew Norman for your article (Beto O’Rourke’s media outburst accidentally said everything about Brexit in a few short words, 7 August). I have a new hero.

I never thought I would read a columnist in a mainstream newspaper state what should be the “bleeding obvious” about the scandal of the Tory press. Something that I have tried my best to get my friends, family and anyone else close enough that I could bend their ear – usually with no, or next-to-no success – to accept.

So, thank you again, and I do wish you the best of luck with what might just prove to be the start of a long and bitter campaign.

David Curran
Feltham

Independent Minds Events: get involved in the news agenda

Raab and Trump

I would rather Dominic Raab, and the government he represents, express shame rather than pride in meeting Donald Trump.

Not in my name.

The world needs leaders prepared to stand up to the US president’s arrogant racism, not act like sycophants.

Richard Greenwood
Ferndale

Cheers, Michael Gove

May I take the opportunity of using your letters page to thank Michael Gove for winning me a large bet? I had wagered with a friend that the government would be blaming the EU for its own hopeless incompetence by the end of the first week in August, and Gove has guaranteed my winnings.

Michael Rosenthal
Address supplied

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