I am not sure I have ever been more ashamed to be British than when watching BBC documentary The Day the Immigrants Left last week.

The programme explored the effects of immigration in the UK by focusing on the town of Wisbech, where nearly 2,000 unemployed locals blame their joblessness on an influx of 9,000 immigrants since 2004.

The documentary saw immigrant employees temporarily removed from their jobs and 11 British unemployed workers recruited to see if they could fulfil the same roles - which included, among others, cutting asparagus and working in a potato packhouse.

So did the Brits in this programme manage to show that they could work with the same enthusiasm and efficiency as the immigrants they had replaced? The answer, by and large, was no and, in the meantime, some of them managed embarrassingly to portray themselves as bigoted, lazy and ignorant all at once.

In the end, some of the Brits did acquit themselves well and the managers involved made it clear that they are more than willing to take on any worker from any background, as long as they are keen to work hard.

While fresh produce companies are at the mercy of their supermarket customers, literally every penny counts. What this programme did highlight was the huge importance of immigration to the UK economy, especially to the fresh produce industry. Let’s hope, with the general election imminent, that some Home Office ministers were watching and duly noted this.

Topics