Fifth-generation farmer Chris Wray Ten years after delivering the strongest Brexit vote in Britain, the Lincolnshire town that became the face of the Leave movement is wrestling with a painful question: what exactly did it get in return? Standing on 700 acres farmed by his family for five generations, farmer Chris Wray delivers a stark verdict. "I can't afford to employ my own kids," he says. For a family whose land has survived wars, recessions and political upheaval, the statement lands like a thunderbolt. The 46-year-old father of four says his own future in farming once seemed guaranteed. Now he cannot say the same for his children. When Britain voted to leave the European Union in June 2016, Boston voted harder for Brexit than anywhere else in the country. More than 75 per cent of residents backed Leave, turning the market town into a national symbol of frustration over immigration, economic change and a feeling that Britain had lost control. For years, Boston sat at the centre of Britain's immigration debate. Following EU expansion in 2004, workers from countries including Poland, Lithuania, Romania and Latvia arrived in large numbers to work in agriculture, food processing and logistics. The town changed rapidly. New businesses opened, different languages became commonplace and some residents felt their community was transforming faster than they could influence. Into that atmosphere stepped Nigel Farage, UKIP and the wider Leave campaign. Their message was simple: end free movement, take back control and put British workers first. Boston embraced it completely. But a decade later, many of the industries that depended on migrant labour are facing serious difficulties. Farmers and employers who once relied on overseas workers have struggled to fill vacancies. Wray says the workers who became the focus of so much anger were also helping to keep local businesses running. "When you talk to Eastern Europeans, they've got that old-school work ethic you remember your parents having," he says. "They work crazy hard, all day, every day. British people just don't want that work." Not everyone sees the issue the same way. Twenty-seven-year-old Jacques Perdeaux says immigration remains the town's defining concern. Although he was too young to vote in 2016, he says he would support Nigel Farage and agrees with Reform UK's position on immigration and welfare. Yet even he struggles to argue that Brexit delivered everything promised. "Everyone blames the government," he says. "The system is flawed." Iga Bontoft, who runs EU Linc Just a few streets away, Polish-born community worker Iga Bontoft tells a very different story. Having lived in Boston for 16 years, paid taxes and built a life in Britain, she says many migrants still feel uncertain about their future. "None of us really feels settled," she says. Bontoft argues that vastly different groups are often lumped together in political debates about immigration. She says many people overlook the long hours worked by migrants who contribute to the local economy. The financial reality of Brexit has hit farming particularly hard. For decades, British farmers benefited from the EU's Common Agricultural Policy, which delivered around £3.5 billion annually to agriculture across Britain. Wray says those payments often represented the difference between profit and loss. "Our subsidy figure was essentially our profit figure," he says. Since Brexit, those payments have been phased out and replaced by environmental schemes. Meanwhile, fuel, fertiliser, machinery, insurance and energy costs have all risen sharply. "The margin under Brexit has just gone," says Wray. Across Lincolnshire, many farmers are now focused on limiting losses rather than generating profits. "Nothing makes any money," Wray says. "It's about what you're going to lose the least on." The pressure has pushed many farmers towards solar energy. Wray has already dedicated 100 acres of land to solar panels and says he would commit more if possible. "It could put me in profit," he says. "I could draw more money from solar than from farming." That creates a striking contradiction in Boston and Skegness, represented by Reform UK MP Richard Tice. Reform opposes large-scale solar farms and wants them removed from agricultural land. Yet many local farmers now see solar energy as one of the few viable ways to stay afloat . Wray is no enthusiastic supporter of Net Zero policies. But he says he has little choice. "It's hard to go net zero when you're poor," he says. "It'll bankrupt us if we're not careful." The impact is also being felt on Boston's high street. Fruit shop owner Sayid Kutan questions whether his business can survive, saying the streets have become noticeably quieter and the town feels divided. Driving through Boston today reveals a landscape of waterlogged fields, solar farms, migrant-owned businesses and shuttered market stalls. For many residents, the promises of Brexit were clear: stronger industries, greater prosperity and a brighter future. Ten years later, critics point to lost subsidies, labour shortages and mounting financial pressures. For Chris Wray, the issue is deeply personal. The question is no longer about politics or slogans. It is whether a sixth generation of his family will be able to make a living from the same land that supported every generation before them. Boston voted harder for Brexit than anywhere else, 10 years on what have they got for it?
