Surrounded by people in comfortable clothing to work in wearing Solidarity pins, the farmer who owns the plot of land they are on, and a few somewhat confused looking reporters, /u/NicolasBroaddus helps get them in order as he explains. He is wearing work boots and jeans alongside a short sleeved shirt, seeming to be unphased and rather amused by the uncomfortable reporters.

“I know this may seem like an odd place for a press conference, but I was hoping I could make use of your cameras to provide the fine folks at home with a little visual aid. That and I’d like to see if I can get your hands dirty. Because tell me, when you look around us, what do you see?”

Some of them look around, showing through the cameras the exposed mud and peat of a blanket bog. Outwards at least half a mile in most directions was the same cracked loose earth, with a distinctive odour.

“As many of you are no doubt already aware, this is known as a blanket bog, which is both visually and ecologically very distinct from the wetlands we go to so much effort to prevent collapsing. In fact these are a ticking time bomb in so many ways. Especially with the ongoing drought, all it will take is one bad set of thunderstorms to cause mass shifting in soil and even landslides where the terrain would cause it. And if that’s not bad enough, they function in an almost infectious way to the land surrounding them! The ground itself has become acidic thanks to both the peat itself and the presence of longstanding industrial pollution. In some places in the South Pennines, the peat is as acidic as lemon juice!”

This gets some murmurs from the crowd, and as /u/Nicolasbroaddus kicks at some of the loose dry peat, sending a scatter of dusty dirt outwards, he continues.

“Now, thankfully, this is not an irreversible process, but it is not as simple as we might like to hope. We would like to just be able to come out here, plant a tree each, and go home patting ourselves on the back. But if we did that, I imagine Mr. Ramsay here would be quite cross with us, as if you try to plant a tree in a blanket bog, you’ll only drain the soil of what precious few nutrients it has left, and guarantee disaster. I do fundamentally believe in the reforestation of the UK, and of specifically restoring the Caledonian Forest, but there is work we need to do before we can even start planting trees. Which is part of what I’m going to make you press folks into my own personal pressgang with! Alongside myself and some lovely volunteers of course.”

Some of the Solidarity members start unloading hand pushed seed spreaders from a van, others retrieving bags of seeds from the trailer attached to Mr. Ramsay’s tractor.

“Because the first step to restoring a blanket bog is small grasses, we’re using Heather Brash today as it’s native to the region and well suited for this. Now, due to the acidity problems in the soil, we also have to correct that through use of lye and other bases, which thankfully Mr. Ramsay has already sprayed on this small lot we’re going to be working on together. It should only take us an hour or two if we work together. Because I want to show everyone in Scotland that if we work together and show Solidarity, we can combat changes to the environment that seem insurmountable. Now come on, I’ll even let you ask me questions while we work.”

One reporter, in a fitted suit and leather loafers, seeming uncomfortable already with the mud, starts to protest, but Nic cuts him off.

“Now are you really gonna tell me that spreading seeds with a hand-pushed machine while we walk and talk is too much work for you? Do you make your camerawoman drive you everywhere too?”

This gets some laughs from other press, which shames the reporter into compliance.

“Because the point of this is not just to lecture you on agronomy, but to illustrate how it will benefit all of us, both those in the cities and those out here in the expanses of nature. If we are to imagine a Britain that works in true Solidarity, we must fundamentally confront this divide we have put upon ourselves. The needs of the farmer and the clerk are the same. In the event of a supply chain crisis, we will need British farmers, and right now British farmers need us. We have become accustomed to seeing our world in terms of cities and towns, or perhaps constituencies and devolved nations. The world Solidarity imagines sees our priorities also focused around the bounties of nature that provide us our most basic needs. Districts that decide the management of water sources that are determined by the flow of the river, rather than arbitrary lines drawn on maps. Cooperatives forged around the local supply chains that bring food and drink to our table, and that let us know the land we rely on. Marx himself told us about commodity fetishism, we’d do well to listen, and reconnect with the goods that we all need.”

“Britain is one of the few nations to draw most of its arbitrary map lines based on how the forces that created all this bounty put it into place. Island nations have it easier that way. Yet still we draw and force together communities based on proximity, rather than communal interest. As progressive analysts of voting districts will tell you, pretty lines mean nothing compared to properly representing communities of interest. The democracy cooked up by the Ancient Greeks has always been a farce, at least the Romans were honest about how they were rigging it against the interests of the plebeians. There is so much history and nuance in the discussion about rural/urban divides. Yet you wouldn’t know that from listening to the Government! If you believed the pretty little lies of Labour and the Liberal Democrats, you’d think this trade deal they’re proposing was gonna turn shit to gold. I’ll tell you all this, I’ve been all across this planet, including quite a few places the United States has free trade agreements with. Most of those free trade deals look about the same as the one proposed by the Government. A few are better. But they have all, every single one, been exploitative and predatory. In fact, I would posit that in capitalism it is impossible for such a loosening of trade barriers with the US to be anything but unless you are a superpower with equivalent GDP.”

“This is hardly new ground in Britain either, the common land still lives in the minds and dreams of many of us. The True Levellers, or the Diggers as many of you may know them, told us centuries ago the moral truth. To paraphrase the aged English of their time: ‘And while we are made to labor the Earth together, with one consent and willing mind; and while we are made free, that every one, friend and foe, shall enjoy the benefit of their Creation, that is: to have food and rayment from the Earth, their Mother.’ How deeply have we been conditioned by landlords and corporations that we have let them steal the common land? It’s obvious to me that Mr. Ramsay and I and all the rest of us are on the same side. We have a common enemy in the looters and rapists of our Mother Earth.”

“You know what rubs further salt in that wound? Even the wonderful bounty we do harvest here in Britain is still subject to the leering eyes of capital. Vast quantities of produce are judged and discarded based purely on aesthetic appearances. Some are discarded due to insects or other concerns, no doubt, but it is a fact that more than half of all food produced on farms is discarded. Imagine the audacity of capitalism to claim there is a lack of food to let no human go hungry while they force the burning or mulching of thousands of tonnes of perfectly good produce on the fabricated demands of market interests. I’d go further still and say that just as we have a crisis of unrealistic body standards, so too have we allowed the seductive deceptions of advertising slip into our consumption of food.”

“We believe that our multitudes of varieties, flavours, and packaging in some way displays our wealth or enhances our lives. They do not, beyond a certain point, and in packaging I would argue they do not at all. I will gladly admit to hating advertisement, in all its forms. It is a forced disruption of the sanctity of our minds and eyes. I did not consent to have companies design things to push at my subconscious and memory to impact the decisions I make! We ban advertising on damaging products like cigarettes, force them to have disturbing images and health warnings. Yet we let Tyson and Nestle make a market of our metabolisms! I call for an end to this farce, for Britons to take into their hands not only the tools of their labour but the bounty of their harvests. Only Solidarity will confront this fermenting ill at the heart of our society, for as always, the way to our heart is through our stomach.”

While /u/NicolasBroaddus pushes his own cart, he starts taking questions from the press from then on out. Despite the complaints from the press who had been bullied into participating, working together to spread the seeds through the little push carts is not a difficult task with so many of them working together. It takes them only a little under an hour to fully sow the field, and Mr. Ramsay makes a point to thank and shake the hands of everyone who helped. Most of the participants look dirty but happy with what they accomplished, the one reporter who had been mocked remaining somewhat sullen however.

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