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- Latest: AA says no shortage of fuel – no need to panic buy
- FT: Boris Johnson orders rapid fix to UK shortage of truck drivers
- BRC: Action needed fast to save Christmas
- Introduction: pressure mounts on government over driver shortage
- Full story: Grant Shapps will do ‘whatever it takes’ to fix lorry driver shortage
- Shapps doesn’t rule out using army drivers
Jonathan Freedland has written about how Brexit – and the specific deal Boris Johnson negotiated with the European Union – is the central cause of the problems at petrol stations and in the shops.
Here’s a flavour:
Where once a haulier from Łódź might do a trip that took in Leicester and Lyon, the British leg is now so tangled in red tape as to be not worth the bother. We should hardly be surprised. As Sam Lowe, trade sage at the Centre for European Reform, puts it drily: “We did make a big decision to differentiate ourselves from our neighbours.”
Or listen to Paul Kelly, a major and now struggling turkey supplier in Essex: “The reason we’re having all these issues is entirely because of Brexit and nothing else.” The issue in question is the shortage of labour: “The people who we used to have coming into the country to pluck and pack our turkeys: they’re no longer allowed in.”
Related: The cause of our food and petrol shortages is Brexit – yet no one dares name it | Jonathan Freedland