The Daily Mail (The Daily Mail) published an article yesterday confirming the government has put the army on standby to supply HGV drivers to help deliver food to supermarkets. Problems in the supply chain mean some foodstuffs are in short supply. The article puts virtually all the blame on Covid and the track and trace app for ‘pinging’ too many people. Brexit is mentioned twice in passing.
Another report in Politics Home carries a warning that things are about to get worse. Nigel Jenney, CEO of the Fresh Produce Consortium, said his members on average were 10-20% short of labour every day resulting in crops not being picked and food going to waste. This is quite separate to driver shortages in the logistics industry but has the same root cause, Brexit.
The Mail's report is the kind of thing you read about in countries ravaged by civil war. It's not beyond imagination that Ethiopian TV will soon be over here filming riots outside supermarkets.
The government is supposed to be introducing SPS checks on foodstuffs arriving from Europe at the end of October and a host of new controls under the Border Operating Model. These have already been delayed once. I am not convinced we are ready anyway, but to start loading more problems and delays onto EU exporters, UK importers and the supply chain business is now unthinkable. Look out for another delay being announced shortly.
The army is supposed to be providing 2,000 drivers but the industry is 100,000 drivers short so not likely to have a huge impact.
In the midst of the crisis we read of a Polish HGV driver who had formerly worked in the UK for 6 years applying to come here and look for work. He apparently sold up at home and did all the right things according to the UK government website, arriving in Doncaster airport on 14 June to apply for settled status as he was entitled to do. He told officials that he had started an application and presented the documents as proof.
His reward? He was detained and deported back to Poland a week later, having wasted seven days and a lot of money. It is utter madness.
Many in the transport industry are calling for a relaxation of the rules to allow drivers from the EU to return, but opening the door (which the government is loathe to do) doesn't mean there will be a big rush to come through it. Brexit has done the damage and it won't easily be repaired - or anytime soon. Stories like the Polish driver Jakob's are not likely to make things any easier.
The right wing press are pretending this is a result of the so-called 'pingdemic' - the track and trace system advising people who have come into contact with the virus being told to isolate - but there are no such shortages in continental Europe and we are supposed to have one of the best vaccination rates in the world. No, something else is at work and it is clearly Brexit.
Before January, EU drivers coming to the UK with a load could then do cabotage work. This would mean for example, if they were delivering to Manchester, they could pick up a return load to (say) Birmingham and another to London before getting a load back to continental Europe. This has all but stopped since there are (a) fewer trucks coming and (b) they can only do limited cabotage work.
This is quite apart from all of the UK based Eastern European drivers who returned home and cannot now come back, even if they wanted to, without going through immigration and all that that involves as we saw in Doncaster.
We are also told facilities for long distance drivers in Europe are much better than in Britain where they're expected to live in their cabs for days on end without a shower or toilet facilities.
More and more pictures of empty supermarket shelves are being posted on Twitter and although the shortages are not serious yet and may never be serious, it shows how close we are to what would be a disaster. Another wave of coronavirus, a new variant, some flash flooding and the picture could easily get quite bleak.
Finally, Matt Frei (German, Channel 4 News) and Sonia Delesalle-Stolper (French, Liberation) have both written excellent pieces for The New European about the last five years. Find them HERE and HERE. They are both still scratching their heads to understand what Brexit is all about and why Britain has damaged itself so needlessly. The views of people not born here are always interesting to me.
They would both be fascinated to read the latest Brexit Tracker post from Gerhard Schnyder which tries to answer the question. His post is about sovereignty, authority and power and how they are very different things. It's a very perceptive read for anyone who is still trying to get their minds around the madness of Brexit.
