The future of your summer holiday has just been programmed. A consortium backed by Silicon Valley money and Gulf sovereign wealth is today breaking ground on what they are calling the first fully automated resort chain. The first site, a 500-room complex on the Greek island of Crete, will operate with a human management team of just four people. Everyone else – from the bartender to the cleaner to the concierge – is a robot.
The political class in Westminster is only just waking up to this. They should be terrified. This isn't a novelty. This is a test case for the entire service economy. And the unions? They are already briefing against it. A source from the GMB told me they are planning a campaign of 'direct action' if the concept proves viable. That will be a fight Downing Street does not want. Not with an election looming.
The tech is impressive. The robots can mix 200 cocktails an hour. They can change a bedsheet in 90 seconds. They do not pay tax. They do not take sick days. The resort's CEO, a former McKinsey partner, gave me the line: 'We are liberating humans from drudgery. This is not about replacing jobs. It is about upgrading them.' That is the script. The reality is that the only 'upgraded' jobs will be for a handful of software engineers in a data centre in Malaga.
The politics here is toxic. The Labour Party is split. The Shadow Culture Secretary is privately warning that we risk a 'service sector dystopia' on the doorstep of Europe. But the Shadow Business Secretary – a man with one eye on the tech donors – is arguing for a 'mature conversation' about automation. The Leader's office is running for cover. They know this is a potential wedge issue for the Tories, who are already spinning it as a 'British innovation success story' because the robotics firm is based in Cambridge.
But the real story is the data. My sources in the polling industry tell me that focus groups on this issue are producing the most visceral reactions they have seen since the 2015 migration crisis. It breaks along age lines. Under-30s are broadly indifferent. Over-50s are angry. 'They are taking our jobs' is the refrain, but it is more than that. It is a primal unease. A sense that the contract between generations has been torn up.
The government's response has been classic fudge. A taskforce. A 'green paper on automation' due in the autumn. A promise to 'monitor' the social impact. This is the language of a political class that has no idea what is coming. The Tories are hoping the robots stay in Crete and don't come to Margate. Labour is hoping the unions can be placated with a consultation. Neither is preparing for what happens when the first British worker tries to book a holiday and finds they are dealing with a machine.
There is also a foreign policy dimension. The Greek government is furious. They were sold this as a 'green development' creating local jobs. Instead it is a robot colony. The Greek tourism minister, a former communist, is threatening to revoke the operating licence. Brussels is watching. The EU's new AI Act could yet ban fully automated resorts on human dignity grounds. That would be a gift to the Eurosceptics in the Conservative Party. They are already sharpening their knives.
I spoke to a former No. 10 adviser who now works for the robotics consortium. Off the record, he told me: 'This is like the first iPhone. In five years, everyone will have one. The politicians who resist will be on the wrong side of history.' That may be true. But history has a habit of throwing up surprises between now and then. And this story is not going away. It is going to dominate the summer recess. Every MP will be asked about it in their constituency. The robots are coming. And Westminster is not ready.
