Saturday 25 September 2021

Truck drivers

The government, having spent five years building the biggest possible barriers against foreign workers from the EU, and creating a hostile environment for any EU nationals living here, now seems to believe there are thousands of European workers straining at the leash to get back. The FT are reporting a decision is expected shortly that will see a few more visas issued to allow HGV drivers and food plant workers into the UK before Christmas.

It is jaw droppingly naive.

In the FT's report is this;

"One person close to the situation said the prime minister was 'completely fed up with bad headlines on this and wants it sorted and doesn’t care about visa limits any more'."

My advice to Johnson is - better get used to it.

The BBC this morning say government sources are claiming these new visas will be ‘strictly time limited.’ This is a fig leaf to cover the humiliating climb down and the now widespread cracking in the Brexit facade. It is hardly likely to encourage drivers to move from Europe.

Even supposing that the streets of Calais are full of unemployed workers who are just waiting for the opportunity to jump on a cross Channel ferry and find work over here, there is little chance that the required numbers will be tempted.

We have effectively constructed a huge non-return valve.

I see people on Twitter claiming that HGV drivers working in Germany are better paid and enjoy better working conditions, particularly concerning facilities in motorway service stations for overnight stays, for toilets, washing and showering and so on.

Lord Lilley is then on Newsnight saying we should be training our own people to do the work and not rely on ‘cheap Labour from abroad'.  I am not sure that EU labour is that cheap any more and the conditions are unlikely to change overnight anyway. The Brexit backing peer had no solution at all to the immediate problem of what supply chains are supposed to do between now and Christmas.

One haulier said the problem will persist through 2022.

Lilley claimed it was nothing to do with Brexit, and was due to driver training and testing being reduced because of the pandemic. Without that we wouldn't see these problems, he said, obviously forgetting his own government was offered an extension of two years halfway through the pandemic but turned it down.

Europe also has a driver shortage but it isn’t being seen in acute shortages of petrol, diesel, food and everything else. This is unique to Britain because we have cut ourselves off from the single market and the free movement of goods, services, money and people.

So, instead of a few shortages being shared evenly across the market, it is now shared unequally with this country bearing the brunt.

If a decision is made to open the doors temporarily, it will put the government in the worst possible position. It will be an admission they that they were totally unprepared, that Brexit is a significant cause of the shortages and yet it will not actually solve the problem. Clever, eh?

This is always the way things work out when you persist in a stupid plan which everyone can see is going wrong, for far too long.

Wages and costs are rising fast and this is soon going to feed through into prices and inflation which will force wages higher still. There will be a temporary feel-good period until prices overtake wages again and with all the constraints on the economy, growth will slow and we will have stagflation - a stagnant economy but with spiralling inflation.

Petrol is the latest issue and the queues forming at petrol stations - even here in Selby yesterday - should be a warning to the government about what lies ahead when shortages become more apparent. Anarchy is never more than four meals away. Fuel is essentially being rationed now with at least one supplier operating 400 stations, limiting customers to £30 maximum.

It is shades of 1973 again, which is exactly what Brexit means isn’t it?

Shane Brennan, chief executive of the Cold Chain Federation, which represents the chilled food industry, said the temporary visa scheme is "a positive breakthrough on an important point of principle. However this feels like too much of a Whitehall compromise rather than a real solution.” 

He said 5,000 highly conditional visas would not be enough. “Having admitted that immigrant labour is a part of the solution, why can’t we do it properly and give our exhausted food industry supply chain workers the reinforcements they desperately need?”

I think he means why not reinstate freedom of movement.  Why not indeed?
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