UK to allow temporary visas for butchers in latest post-Brexit U-turn

Move comes weeks after farmers began culling healthy pigs owing to lack of abattoir staff

The government has stepped in to counter a spiralling crisis on pig farms by allowing butchers to enter the UK on temporary visas, in the latest reversal of post-Brexit immigration policy.

Butchers in abattoirs and meat processing plants dealing with pigs will be allowed to come to work in Britain for six months, the environment secretary, George Eustice, announced on Thursday evening. He said 800 butchers were needed to meet staffing shortages and get the situation under control.