This is what, in media circles, is known as a goat fuck. That's a large volume of microphones
and cameras in pursuit of an event which the cameras and microphones themselves create.
Hello, right is it Ken we're seeing?
It is. Where is Ken?
Right, we'll follow the scrum.
We're not allowed to catch anything. This is a directive from Europe, innit?
Er, yeah, I think it probably is.
There's about two fishermen in there... about 15 journalists.
Because all of us know, there's more Thornback rays around than there's ever been in my lifetime.
So how would the farms around here survive without European, eastern European immigrants?
Well, how did they survive before 2004?
If everyone could move out of the way of the back of that thing as well.
Can I ask a question while he's walking along?
Hello.
You talk a lot about social tension here, problems that have arisen on account of immigration,
as you see it. Do you think you're dancing around the problems to an extent? And the
big issues, low wages, high rents and so on - what have you got to say about those?
Well, well, it's quite easy, isn't it? Markets are quite easy to work out. Why are rents
high? Because there's much more demand on property with a rapidly increasing population.
Gush... Gosh!
Wages?
Well, wages, that's even simpler. You know... the minimum wage was brought in to be a floor
on wages, it's actually become the maximum wage for 1.5 million people because there
is an endless supply of semi-skilled and unskilled labour.
If you control your own borders and you have an Australian-style points system, you can
choose every year the number of people you want. The Aussies do it sector by sector on
an annualised basis and they choose the best people to come into their country. It's exactly
what we should do and if we did that, there'd be no debate. There'd be no argument, immigration
would cease to exist as an issue in British politics.
Simple as that?
Simple as that.
It's not as simple as that.
Boston, in Lincolnshire, is right at the top of Ukip's target list. The fields and factories
here produce most of Britain's vegetables. It's an industry built on low wages and mainly
migrant labour.
Everything starts each day before dawn, when workers get picked up by gang masters and agencies.
Excuse me, sir. Do you speak English?
No.
You don't speak English? Ok
Do you speak English?
No.
How long have you been in Boston?
Yeah.
Where are you from?
Latvia. Latvia? Are you going to work in a factory or on the land?
Factory.
Factory, ok. And how much do you get paid?
Six fifty five.
Six fifty five?
Yeah.
It's an interesting little glimpse of Britain's food economy here: these workers waiting outside
this discount supermarket to go to work.
They're obviously going to work in a part of the economy that produces low price food.
Their wages and conditions reflect that, all they can afford to buy is low priced food.
It all goes round in a circle.
Two for a pound, come on! Any two you like!
Well, Ukip have bought the outside of the Boston Target. It says meet Nigel Farage at
the Haven High Academy on April the 8th. And on the back: vote local man.
Sounds like a superhero. Goes into phone boxes and emerges as... Local Man!
He's a voice for ordinary people.
Yeah, well we want to get our country back form Brussels, you know.
Nigel Farage.
Nigel, he's coming to the town you know?
I know he is yeah.
Are you coming to see him?
Ooh, definitely.
Can I give you a leaflet?
No, no.
But you are a supporter?
No, course I'm not.
Ah ha ha ha!
How the hell is everybody going to have jobs, somewhere to live, places at schools, schools, doctors.
Yes, it's the sheer numbers of people we can't cope with. Absolutely.
Why are Ukip doing so well here?
Because people are concerned about immigration. Absolutely.
I believe the Ukip because he talks Boston's language, that guy does.
Morning, you alright?
Ukip's Robin Hunter-Clarke is 22. On May 7th he could well take this seat from the Tories
and become Boston's next MP.
People want control of their borders, they want to get a grip on the number of people
that can enter this country per year, like Australia do, and people are sick to death
of not being able to get a job because of migrant workers coming over from the EU, compressing
the... the wages and that's what people are concerned about.
You've no chance of getting land work around here if you're English.
And why is that?
Work cheaper, don't they? I mean, I was on £500 in about 1996 and you can't earn that
now. It's brought the wages down. I mean, you're earning less now that what you would
be ten years ago.
Your son's an agency worker?
Yeah.
And is he making enough to live on?
Well, not really, no.
They should force the English people to take the lower paid jobs because at least they're
in work.
If they turned round and said to the English people: "Right, you've got six months, you've
got to take that job or your benefits will stop and you just carry on however... carry
on without your benefits."
You think they'd be cutting celeriac and cabbages quick then?
I used to when I was younger and if they just got off their lazy arses and did a bit of
work. It's there to be earned if they got off their backsides and did it.
English people, you're talking about?
English people, I'm talking about.
It's a bit of a mess this really, innit?
Yeah, the whole country's in a mess.
(Argument)
Fuck it! What's the matter?
Respect our country if you want to live here.
Can we talk to you for a minute?
Are you from here?
Yeah, I'm from here. Fully English, my girlfriend's Lithuanian, speaks brilliant English. There's
nothing wrong with them.
How do you feel about the local job market... because obviously.
Oh, fair enough, they've taken on all the jobs and that but they should get up off their
fucking arses and get their own jobs themselves then.
There was a phrase I heard more than a few times in that conversation, which was that
such and such a group of people should get off their arses.... English people should
get off their arses, those people over their should get off their arses. Seems that everybody
thinks somebody else should get off their arse.
So that's what I decided to do.
I'm feeling nervous now. This is manual labour for the first time in too long.
Yes, how is your back? Because this is, er, back-breaking stuff.
Well, we'll find out.
We will find out, yes.
Jack Buck Farms specialise in celeriac and daffodils, which is what I'm picking today.
70 percent of the workers here are migrants. How much you earn depends on how much you
pick. Fast workers can get paid well above the minimum wage but it's not as easy as it looks.
That's 25 bunches.
You're about 6p each then, so...
So 25 times 6p.
Is, er...
About £1.50.
How long have you been doing this job Aidy?
Since I was about 15, 14.
How old are you now?
48.
Right.
This one is like four, five, six weeks and then we come back on the land doing cauliflower.
I mean, there's some good lads, some good foreign lads. There's still a lot of good
English workers out there but I think they've got off the land over the years, since they
started coming in. You know, got different jobs, moved on as they've got older. Apart
from me, the stupid ones still stay.
Ha!
But yeah.
You're being hard on yourself.
It's hard on your back after a few years, it gets hard on your back.
Are you making enough to live on?
Pfff, well, yeah it's enough. Yeah, this job gives you money to live, you know?
There's always been peaks and troughs in agriculture and if I could point to this: our flowers
sometimes start in the middle of January, sometimes they start on the first of March
and I need 200 people at our busiest, so how do I manage that? I can't do that without
having recourse to a pool of agency labour.
If, for some reason, the supply of migrant workers dried up, what would that mean for
your business right now?
It would be dreadful. Maybe if... we could tempt people out if we paid twice the price
but I don't think that would be acceptable at the other end, would it?
Do you mean selling? The economics of the whole business would no longer work.
I don't think it would add up and whether... I don't think we could get the people anyway
at any price.
All over this part of the world, the UK Independence Party, as you know, are doing very well and
they're driving mainstream political debate in the direction of starting to have a conversation
about leaving the EU.
It would be a disaster for this part of the world if we left the EU. The EU's been good
to farmers.
There's a huge, sort of, tension or irony involved there then because this part of the
world is the Ukip heartland and what Ukip propose, as you see it, would be catastrophic
for this part of England.
I think so.
While the migrant population here has quadrupled in a decade, the economy has also changed.
It's no longer just about pulling things out of the ground but also food processing and
distribution. The use of agencies, casual workers and low pay has spread beyond farming
and across the whole of this area's economy.
This is what insecure work looks like: "You will be required to work various shift patterns
between Monday to Friday." If you've got a family that rules you out.
"Candidates will be required to work on an ad hoc basis." Again if you've got dependents,
family, any disability... you've had it.
Long term temporary position. What's a long term temporary position?
Is Zee around? Are you Zee?
Yes.
Ah, good. John, how do you do?
Hiya.
Nice to meet you.
Zidonis came here from Latvia. A few years ago he began helping his fellow Latvians with
their problems at work and he's now compiled their cases into a report that's being circulated
in the town.
Well, this is the report I have actually done it in the last two years.
OK.
Roughly, about 1,600 people.
1,600 people?
Someone here's worked a 45 hour week and they've peen paid, net, about £172.
People have been injured at work and then just getting fired?
Yes, yeah.
Often workers are required to work for 14 and 16 hours a day.
Exactly, yeah.
It says here: "In certain factories where heavy work is required, the temporary workforce
is changed every two to three months.
This is because after three months they should be given holiday.
And these are really common?
Yes, yeah.
Do you feel, personally, there are tensions about immigration locally?
Well, we just hear the bad things about the, er, Eastern Europeans and foreigners.
What do you hear?
Well, about the... we just take the benefits, but they're not seeing that background.
I think one of the reasons why English people support Ukip is because they're scared of
the fact that jobs don't seem to last very long any more and the people that they know,
or they themselves might be low paid and someone comes along and says: "the problem is the
fact that we're in the European Union and all these migrants" right, and they're so
scared and, very often, desperate. So that's who they'll vote for.
Probably no town in England has been more fundamentally changed in the last ten years
by open door immigration than Boston and I've seen the impact.
What he was saying about young people locally maybe not being able to get jobs or their
wages being squeezed...
No, no. I mean, my husband works 30 hours a week and all we get is £300 a fortnight
and we've got to support a nine-year-old child.
Wagers are cut, gangers are exploiting everyone and you can't... you can't make a living in
this town anymore on the land, which people have been doing for hundreds of years.
Right, they're queueing up for the second meeting. I suppose I walk away from this feeling...
sort of sad. People live in an impossible local economy with low wages, declining conditions,
high rents and they're angry and they're anxious as well and they're scared. And along comes
a party, saying: "You're right to feel like that, you're right to feel angry. And we agree
with you, don't apologise for who you are. Don't apologise for what you think."
I've got a feeling Ukip are going to win here. I don't say that with any great relish, they're
a pretty cynical, opportunistic lot whose politics are quite ugly from time to time.
It's not because they've got convincing solutions, it's just because they give the appearance
of listening and that really speaks volumes about the extent of the political failure
in this place...
...And all over the country.