Opinion: Is Brexit a Martian plan to kill food production?
© Tanee/Adobe Stock Ten years ago, I went to a meeting organised by our rural chaplain. He was interested in the phenomenon of Eastern European migration and wanted to discuss ways to help economic migrants to integrate into our local community.
I was the only farmer there. Inevitably, it had been organised at a busy time in the farming calendar – the shooting season.
I recall the chaplain saying passionately: “We need these workers desperately. We just don’t have British people for these jobs. Would you rather your food was produced by human beings or robots?”
See also: Food security debate – balancing imports v self-sufficiency
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‘I want robots!’
“Robots!” barked a woman sternly and unexpectedly from the back of the hall. She ignored the fact it was a rhetorical question. She warmed to her theme: “Robots, I want robots.”
Everyone turned around. These days, you might describe her as “Brexity”, but we didn’t have that word then. It hadn’t been invented. Back then, we used clumsier phrases such as “forthright, feather-bedded baby boomer”.
“Robots!” she said again, like a malfunctioning robot. She wouldn’t have scored many points as a panellist on Just a Minute.
The chaplain was rather undermined by her interjection. Local churches were heaving again with devout Poles and Lithuanians coming to services, probably to pray that it wouldn’t be too wet and cold during the Brussel sprout harvest that Sunday afternoon.
Different ideology
The chaplain clearly didn’t like the idea of losing these new worshippers. He didn’t want them replaced by a congregation of androids who had been programmed with a completely different ideology.
I wasn’t captivated by her argument either. I didn’t like her thought of the countryside without any humans in it.
Looking back at this incident with the benefit of hindsight, I have come up with a dark conspiracy theory.
What if she actually was a robot? What if she was sent by an intelligent alien life form to spread propaganda about food-producing robots as the start of their plan to take control of planet Earth?
Hear my theory out, it’s a belter. We naively assumed that the EU referendum result was bought by international billionaires and Russia’s president Putin hoping to benefit from fracturing the EU.
But what if it was Martians who were actually behind it?
The First World War kicked off with a U-boat sinking the Lusitania with all our beef and bacon on it. War often revolves around food.
Corruptible hands
The Martians have already persuaded most people that it is fine to have their food produced by machines. When all the power for food production is held in a few corruptible hands, they can easily reprogramme the machines.
Robot lawnmowers will move into our vegetable patches. GPS-controlled hoes will suddenly shift 5cm to the right. Before you can say “someone’s been reading too much science fiction recently”, the human race has been wiped out.
I used to think an alien invasion would be like War of the Worlds, with massive metal spiders firing laser beams at Big Ben and the seat of Boris Johnson’s trousers.
Of course it wouldn’t. Why would they hurt him when he is already their greatest ally in destroying British agriculture?
Oh well. At least we get the last laugh. If the Martians don’t get a move on, there will be no natural resources left for them and Earth will only be useful as a galactic landfill site anyway.