My Thoughts On Meeting Tim Martin Head Of J D Wetherspoon

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I have mixed feelings on Wetherspoon’s pubs in the UK. Tim Martin, born in Belfast, named the chain Wetherspoon after a teacher at his school in New Zealand. The company opened its first pub in 1979, and now owns about 900 bars and hotels, with plans to open 250 more over the next five years. The initials J D are a joke, inspired by the character J D Hogg in the Dukes Of Hazard TV shows. The company follows business patterns outlined by Sam Walton, the US founder of Walmart, which Tim Martin greatly admires. Wetherspoon pubs are often situated in architecturally listed buildings, as they buy closed banks, theatres, cinemas, churches, etc. The chain are very supportive to real ale fans, offering discount vouchers to members of real ale societies and selling a variety of real ales at most Wetherspoon bars. All of this sounds great and on one level it is, as pubs are closing, while Wetherspoon bars flourish. Negatives – 1/. The franchise makes many Wetherspoon pubs into carbon copies of one another. 2/. The menu meals are often defrosted and reheated after being frozen at central warehouses. 3/. The cheap beer offers Wetherspoon’s can offer through bulk buying for such a huge PLC corporate body undercuts other pubs which close through not being able to compete. 4/. Real ale drinkers often feel compelled to choose Wetherspoon over other drinking options because they need to use their membership vouchers up (the vouchers have strict time limits). 5/. Wetherspoon’s pubs started by adhering to principles of ideal pub management set out by George Orwell in an essay called The Moon Under Water (several pubs in the chain have the name The Moon Under Water) but gradually the chain is moving away from this ethos. For example, Wetherspoon bars never used to have piped music or TV screens for even watching televised football. Tim Martin launched a splinter group of bars called Lloyds Number One which do have big TV screens but these are now starting to appear at Wetherspoon bars as well. 6/. Wetherspoon’s claim their pubs are free houses but Wetherspoon operates as a giant Pubco, and while guest ales can vary from Wetherspoon pub to pub, there is a great deal of central control. Meeting Tim Martin Tim Martin is an active, even fanatical champion of the Leave Europe Brexit Campaign and even sees no problem with the hard exit (no compensation or safeguards for our severed trading ties) approach that Teresa May is plunging us into, mostly from her government failing to find a smoother way out than intent to leave us in chaos. He has been visiting his pubs to speak on his views, and on Thursday 24th January 2019, he came to one of the two Wetherspoon bars in my home city (The Grey Friar). I went along. The PA system set up for his speech was shockingly bad, and though we had tables and chairs set out, most of the audience had to cram in close around him to hear a word. He was loudly heckled for much of his talk, and some hecklers have followed him from pub to pub on what has been a very long gruelling tour (there were only a few more pub visits left to go after the Grey Friar talk). Tim Martin has written his views at length in the Wetherspoon’s quarterly magazines (given out free in the pubs). His views on Brexit take up nearly half of the current issue, with very little counter-view (which he interrupts and counter-comments on at every turn). Essentially he wants a hard exit to free the market for the UK to trade as it pleases without pressure from Europe. I disagree. A/. We can still trade with Europe and we should be uniting in a move towards a global village, rather than isolating ourselves from our immediate neighbours. B/. We need Europe as much for human rights and legal protection as well as economic support. Brexit creates its biggest problems in Northern Ireland which is still under UK control while the remainder of Ireland (Eire) is staying in the EU (not Brexiting). This has led to relaxed border controls while we are in the EU but could see a return to our police and troops policing Northern Ireland at the borders, which can undermine the Irish Peace Agreement. Teresa May is largely holding on to office through support of the DUP, hard-line opponents of many Northern Ireland freedoms. Much support for Brexit comes from the Far Right, who want extreme immigration controls. In damaging future trade with the European markets, our Prime Minister has tried sucking up to President Trump, though many in the UK find him monstrous. Without Europe, Wetherspoon may well also need to go cap in hand to Trump supporters. The sheer cost of Brexit and the complexity of coming out is painful, costly and dangerous. The Remain (anti-Brexit) lobby really failed to point this out and the Brexit lobby hid the reality of it from the voters. A second referendum, as supported by many including myself, would undoubtedly leave us in Europe though it will create heavy conflict with the pro-Brexit at any cost supporters. Tim Martin is all for trading beyond Europe. He already brings in Australian wines and alternatives to German shooter drinks like Jaegermeister. He has banned popular European drinks like Champagne and Prosecco just to prove his point. A big chain like Wetherspoon can afford it, but independent competitors less so. Importing from further abroad will cause some established trade partners hardship and expand the carbon footprint through longer flights and shipments. It is not good for the environment. Tim Martin highlights pre-Brexit EU restriction on British fishing waters, saying that out of the EU we can fish more, but the restrictions have helped replenish severely declining fish stocks – over-fishing is again bad for everyone. We can fish all we want if we want to risk fish-extinctions. Tim Martin claims leaving the EU will bring costs down, but this has rarely been fed back to the customers and workers. We never saw a penny of the North Sea Gas boom of the 1970’s. If it only lines the pockets of the already wealthy, who cares? More than likely however, they too will lose out over Brexit. I got some of concerns across to Tim Martin, who appreciated that I had questions rather than loud angry abusive reactions to his assertions, but I remain essentially opposed to Brexit, (hard, soft or otherwise) and I do want to support independent pubs over Wetherspoon bars, though I will by no means boycott the Wetherspoon pubs at this time. Arthur Chappell