Facing Post-Brexit Petrol Shortage, UK Issues Emergency Visas for EU Truck Drivers (go.com) 354
Slashdot reader AleRunner tipped us off to some excitement in the UK:
The British government said on Friday it may draft in the army to help deliver gas after shortages caused by a scarcity of truck drivers forced the closure of stations across the country. The haulage industry said there was a shortfall of some 100,000 drivers, and that could also lead to shortages of turkeys and toys this Christmas. Some 25,000 drivers returned to Europe after Brexit, and the pandemic halted the qualification process for new workers...
Gas is just the latest thing that people in the U.K. are finding hard to come by after its departure from the European Union. Previously McDonald's has been forced to take milkshakes off the menu, KFC has run short on chicken and supermarket shelves have been left bare. The crisis is already beginning to bite in other areas of life, with 18 percent of adults saying they have been unable to buy essential food items in the past two weeks, according to the U.K.'s Office for National Statistics. The pandemic means that many countries are facing supply chain problems, as manufacturing centers in Asia are hit by continuing cases and restrictions.
Now the Associated Press reports the government has decided to issue thousands of emergency visas to foreign truck drivers: Post-Brexit immigration rules mean newly arrived EU citizens can no longer work visa-free in Britain, as they could when the U.K. was a member of the trade bloc. Trucking companies have been urging the British government to loosen immigration rules so drivers can more easily be recruited from across Europe...
One cause of the trucker shortage is a backlog caused by the suspension of driver testing for months during Britain's coronavirus lockdowns. The government has already increased testing capacity, as well as extending the number of hours that drivers can work each week, prompting safety concerns. The government said military driving examiners would be pulled in to further boost civilian testing capacity.
Gas is just the latest thing that people in the U.K. are finding hard to come by after its departure from the European Union. Previously McDonald's has been forced to take milkshakes off the menu, KFC has run short on chicken and supermarket shelves have been left bare. The crisis is already beginning to bite in other areas of life, with 18 percent of adults saying they have been unable to buy essential food items in the past two weeks, according to the U.K.'s Office for National Statistics. The pandemic means that many countries are facing supply chain problems, as manufacturing centers in Asia are hit by continuing cases and restrictions.
Now the Associated Press reports the government has decided to issue thousands of emergency visas to foreign truck drivers: Post-Brexit immigration rules mean newly arrived EU citizens can no longer work visa-free in Britain, as they could when the U.K. was a member of the trade bloc. Trucking companies have been urging the British government to loosen immigration rules so drivers can more easily be recruited from across Europe...
One cause of the trucker shortage is a backlog caused by the suspension of driver testing for months during Britain's coronavirus lockdowns. The government has already increased testing capacity, as well as extending the number of hours that drivers can work each week, prompting safety concerns. The government said military driving examiners would be pulled in to further boost civilian testing capacity.
Why would a driver from the EU work in the UK (Score:5, Insightful)
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The main thing is that they're happy elsewhere.
Re:Why would a driver from the EU work in the UK (Score:5, Informative)
They're not. There's a massive desire to get back to US by all the gastarbeiters. They got paid more, and work relations in UK tend to be way better than they are in much of Southern Europe.
There's been plenty of comment from UK lorry drivers about why they gave up driving and won't ever go back. Interestingly, lots of the comments haven't been about pay and weren't even about Brexit directly. The main things mentioned were 1) lack of respect 2) terrible sleeping facilities and 3) lack of toilets. These comments match well with things that official organisations for drivers say [cdltrainingspot.com]. The lack of toilets and overnight parking facilities is a problem which the UK's Conservative party caused when they closed all the previously existing public toilets in the '80s and '90s. The British lorry drivers making these comments were directly comparing the facilities in France and Germany, where they had also been driving. Britain isn't really competing with Italy; it's competing with France and Germany which are nearer, often have higher pay than the UK also have a shortage of truck drivers and just have much better public facilities.
You probably haven't seen these comments and that's because most of the UK media, like the BBC, is aligned with our government and controlled by their friends - independent members of the BBC management are being systematically replaced with Tory placemen. Anything which might criticise Brexit gets cut out to hide the damage done [thelondoneconomic.com]. This is probably the biggest problem; look down this thread and despite the fact that truck drivers who already had the right to work in the UK have been leaving the UK for the continent for months, you will see lots of fantasy comments from people who believe everyone wants to move from the whole world to live in the UK. The people making these comments know less about their country than the average American, let alone the average Eastern European migrant choosing where they want to live depending on what their friends tell them about life in each place.
Re:Why would a driver from the EU work in the UK (Score:5, Interesting)
We have a shortage of security guards which is preventing night time venues from operating and a shortage of STEM graduates which is allowing people to quit their job to grab as much as 20% better pay for the same role elsewhere. We have a lack of cleaners and domestic maintenance professionals. We have a lack of marketers. We also have a lack of nursery nurses. Why? Not because we don't have enough people in the country who are competent enough to do those jobs, it's because we don't have enough people willing to put up with terrible working conditions, barely adequate compensation for their time and employers who like to pretend everybody is easily replaceable (even when they aren't).
The truth is that employers keep pretending human beings can only be skilled in one field (at any given point in time) and have underestimated peoples' average level of intelligence (and willingness to walk away from the negotiating table) as a result. Reality is now dawning on them; when people are all well educated and have a free choice to change career path on a whim, employers no longer have the upper hand. Thanks to the privatisation of university education and the glory that is the Internet, this genie won't be going back in the bottle any time soon.
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For me it is a remarkable that you are able to list all the arguments on why a strong EU with backing of France and Germany is a necessity and still are able to conclude it is a bad idea.
Yes US is turning more and more towards itself and towards it biggest competitor: China. And yes radical Islam threats are closer than they appear.
So, what is the solution? Have no EU and let every country fend for its own? Didn't WOII teach us that this is the dream scenario for our opponents?
No matter how much one might r
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>Britain isn't really competing with Italy; it's competing with France and Germany
Except that of course, France and Germany are filled up markets, with little access for the newcomers. Which is why they went to the only nation that's wealthier than their own, that's big enough to absorb them, and that actually needed drivers.
Italy. Which lost a massive chunk of Chinese gastarbeiters when borders closed. To the tune of hundreds of thousands. And replaced them with Slavs, Romanians, and Magyar.
Real life vs
Re: Why would a driver from the EU work in the UK (Score:3)
Funny how I read most of the points you made in this article the other day (scroll down to Nick Downing): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/bus... [bbc.co.uk]
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Funny how I read most of the points you made in this article the other day (scroll down to Nick Downing): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/bus... [bbc.co.uk]
I've given archive.org/archive.is links which show clearly that these stories weren't on the BBC news front page. They may have appeared on some local editions, but that's not nearly the same. In fact the first story "UK suspends competition laws to boost fuel supplies" has just appeared on the News homepage. If you think 'UK fiddles with laws' is as newsworthy as 'UK unable to deliver petrol' I have, as they say, a bridge to sell you.
Re:Why would a driver from the EU work in the UK (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly this, but "Brexit" is a convenient way to shift blame. The Tories are at fault here and when the drivers finally said fuck it, they collectively shit a brick. Now they're looking elsewhere for some poor sods to do the job.
Totally true, though the main way the Tories are shifting the blame is by screaming COVID COVID and then pointing to shortages in Europe. What they are then ignoring is that if we hadn't had Brexit, we would be part of a much bigger pool of drivers, working more efficiently and so, like Germany, we wouldn't have actual fuel shortages in petrol stations, just drivers being paid a little more overtime and companies from abroad doing extra work.
One of the biggest things that's happened, also worth a mention, is that whilst trade from the EU to the UK has continued like normal, trade from the UK to Europe has fallen massively. That doesn't sound like it would contribute to a shortage of drivers, but what it means is that if a truck comes from Spain to deliver food, it can't take back food in the other direction. The driver now loses half of the revenue from the drive and probably all of the profit. Suddenly the trips that get cancelled are the ones to the UK.
Brexit isn't the cause of the driver shortage.It is, though, the reason that the shortage of drivers in the whole of Europe causes food and petrol supply problems only in the UK.
Re:Why would a driver from the EU work in the UK (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been thinking for quite some time now that the next shock for UK policymakers will be that despite the 5000 emergency visas, probably very few will take up on this offer. The EU truck drivers don't need the UK. At least without a massive increase in pay for working in a hostile environment.
Re:Why would a driver from the EU work in the UK (Score:5, Informative)
There are numerous reasons not to take up this offer. For a start the visa only runs until Christmas Eve, so it's a short term contract at best and there is no possibility of building any career or life here.
In fact many British drivers work in the EU because the conditions are so much better. They have proper rest areas with facilities (toilets, showers, proper food, beds, laundry) where as in the UK there is almost nothing. If conditions are bad enough to drive away British drivers then you won't be seeing many come from the EU just for temporary jobs.
The pound has also taken a battering due to brexit so even with the recent increases wages here are still low. Typically you can early 20% more for the same job in the EU, in many sectors, not just driving.
The UK is also relaxing standards for driving and working hours, so it's now less safe and EU drivers will be expected to match that.
Re:Why would a driver from the EU work in the UK (Score:5, Informative)
That is, of course, untrue. Truck driver salaries in Italy were broadly in line with the UK before brexit, and they have much better facilities. EU working time directives were in force too, and enforced. In fact the EU was more concerned with the UK's lack of enforcement of working time limits, prior to brexit.
Italy's fairly hostile immigration system would make it difficult for Nigerians to work as truck drivers there. Also their HGV licences were harmonized to be equivalent to UK ones (and all other EU countries). Again, they enforced them, and lack of enforcement would have carried pretty severe consequences should there have been an accident.
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"The fun part is that as usual, the far leftist argument is the exact opposite of reality. Eastern European drivers that used to work in UK have overwhelmingly had to work in places like Italy now. Where pay is shit compared to what they get in UK"
You're a bit behind. Every driver gets paid the local wages, no matter where they come from.
Germany, Luxembourg etc pay WAY more than the UK.
Re:Why would a driver from the EU work in the UK (Score:4, Insightful)
Eastern European drivers that used to work in UK have overwhelmingly had to work in places like Italy now.
There's some truth in that. However, all those drivers had the choice of getting residence in the UK and being able to continue working there. Any EU citizen that was in the UK before Brexit has the right to get permanent residence. Despite the fact that there's been a shortage of drivers these driver's chose to move to Italy instead.
The thing that's being avoided here is that Brexit may or may not be the main cause of this problem, however, if we hadn't had Brexit the solution would be easy - hire some companies from other EU countries to do deliveries in the UK when there's any special need. This flexibility is the reason that Germany, which also has a driver shortage, does not have a petrol or food shortage.
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Many of the drivers who deliver goods from the EU to the UK don't live in the UK, their home is wherever they usually drive from, they drive to the UK, drop off some goods, maybe pick up a new load and drive back. Hence the complaint about rest and sleeping facilities for truck drivers, as you'd have very little need for an overnight stop in a country as small as the UK.
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This depends on the type of a lorry you drive. If you drive the intracity logistics "hub to end point" truck, you need a place to sleep, because your job will usually be done during the nights and early mornings, as well as possible daily replenishment. Those trucks don't have sleeper cabs, because they don't need them.
If you're intercity doing hub to hub long haul, you sleep in the cab and truck stops. That's what you are talking about.
UK is experiencing shortage of both to my knowledge, because while the
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It's scheduled to get worse next year as full checks on goods coming into the UK are started. The government may well delay them again but there is a limit to how long the EU will wait for them to start.
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" At least without a massive increase in pay for working in a hostile environment."
They already tried that, together with multiple thousand pound signing bonuses and easier monkey-driver-licenses who never learn to drive in reverse, forcing existing drivers to ride one hour more per day, all to no avail.
Re:Why would a driver from the EU work in the UK (Score:5, Interesting)
"The EU truck drivers don't need the UK."
Here's a lorry-driver reporting from Canterbury (Kent Live):
https://www.kentlive.news/news... [kentlive.news]
"First it was the erosion of truck parking and transport café’s, then it was the massive increase in restricting where I could stop, timed weight limits in just about every city and town, but not all the time.
"You can get there to do your delivery, but you can’t stay there, nobody wants an empty truck, nobody wants you there once they have what they did want.
"Compare France to the UK. I can park in nearly every town or village, they have marked truck parking bays, and somewhere nearby, will be a small routier, where I can get a meal and a shower, the locals respect me, and have no problems with me or my truck being there for the night.
"Go out onto the motorway services, and I can park for no cost, go into the service area, and get a shower for a minimal cost, and have freshly cooked food.
"I even get to jump the queues, because others know that my time is limited, and respect I am there because it is my job. Add to that, I even get a 20% discount of all I purchase.
"But then compare that to the UK - £25-£40 just to park overnight, dirty showers, and expensive, dried (under heat lamps) food that is overpriced and I have no choice but to park there, because you don’t want me in your towns and cities.
"Ask yourself how you would feel, if doing your job actually cost you money at the end of the day, just so you could rest."
Re: Why would a driver from the EU work in the UK (Score:4, Interesting)
Bingo. I remember being taught certain customs for treating truck drivers with respect in the US and through my life I have seen them all vanish.
It's totally a job we downplay and look towards automation to resolve, despite all the value these workers have provided to any modern society.
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"Demand for truck drivers is very high in the EU. No reason to keep working in a country with an hostile immigration environment"
Not to mention that they'd have to drive one hour longer per day, since the UK government changed that as an easy 'solution' to the crisis.
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"Except of course for higher salaries and better working conditions."
They get bigger bottles to piss in.
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Better than pissing in a small bottle while being afraid to get out of your truck for a piss, because illegal immigrants on the way to UK would steal anything that isn't bolted to your truck (and would often steal things that were), and/or hide in your truck to smuggle themselves to UK.
The final leg to Calais was nightmare fuel. I remember watching a few Slavic drivers who recorded the experience and put it on video sharing sites (couldn't put most of that on youtube as that would get you a guideline strike
Plenty of fuel (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: Plenty of fuel (Score:5, Insightful)
there is enough fuel here in the UK. [...] people are going around with full tanks and the stations are empty.
Call me extreme if you have to, but if everybody filling up their car tank essentially empties the stations, that's pretty much the definition of not enough.
Re: Plenty of fuel (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Plenty of fuel (Score:5, Insightful)
No - economically, Brexit was and is always going to be a disaster, it's just COVID has covered up a lot of problems so far due to lower economic activity. That problems start to appear once that rises is no surprise to ANYONE who understands what Brexit would truly mean for the UK. That a number of industries have used foreign workers to fill their ranks does not make anything good or bad, until you get rid of them at short notice without any plans to fully fill the vacuum in time, even if it was made worse by COVID. Either way, it's the COMBINATION of COVID and Brexit that is the problem now, not either in isolation, even if either would still have a negative impact, regardless. And anyone denying the latter, is stupid and/or ignorant.
Re: Plenty of fuel (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Plenty of fuel (Score:4, Informative)
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Re: Plenty of fuel (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you looked at the trade deals that the UK has done? They are desperation deals that are massively one-sided, and not in our favour.
Take the Australia deal. It's completely screwed UK farming. It's so bad that the government is paying UK farmers to retire and sell their land to reduce capacity, in preparation for being flooded with cheaper imports from Australia where standards are much lower.
They could lower UK food standards, even though they promised repeatedly not to, but then UK farmers would find it even harder to sell into their main market - the EU. Regulatory divergence comes at a huge cost and they haven't even sorted out the Irish Sea border yet.
Our "lead" on global climate change is a joke. Our government has been reducing help to buy electric vehicles and investing in fossil fuels. The Green Homes Grant scheme was a disaster and utterly failed to replace the old scheme that helped people insulate their homes and buy solar panels etc.
Global Britain is a joke. People saw what happened in Afghanistan, people see we hate immigrants and that our immigration system is a nightmare.
Re: Plenty of fuel (Score:4, Informative)
My personal favourite is the Japan trade deal. BoJo talking about how the UK can "finally" buy soy sauce tariff free as part of a free trade agreement (as if that was even such a major issue for the UK)
He conveniently forget to mention that the world's biggest supplier of soy sauce had the world's biggest factory producing that stuff in the Netherlands which supplied the UK tariff free from just a short swim away, so even with the free trade agreement the stuff continues to cost more than it did before.
At this point every announced "benefit" from Brexit should be met with the question: "And how did those lying scum this fuck me this time?"
Re: Plenty of fuel (Score:4, Insightful)
The entire Japan trade deal was copy/pasted from the EU/Japan deal, with one small change. The UK's quota is whatever the EU doesn't use. We get the left-over quota, that's it.
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Re: Plenty of fuel (Score:5, Insightful)
"Sigh. That'll explain the multiple trade deals we've signed."
LOL, Australia (pop. 25 million) and NZ (5 million)? :-)
Poland alone has a dozen million more than the 2 combined and they are all lorry-drivers.
Australia has farms bigger than Wales, they'll kill your farmers dead within a year.
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How about you stop inventing patently false shit?
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Anti-brexiters have to make everything the fault of Brexit, even when it means ignoring the European wide shortage of HGV drivers...
So, if there's a shortage of drivers across Europe, how is Brexit not making this worse for the UK again?
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Not just higher pay, but much better conditions. Facilities for drivers in the UK are awful compared to those on the continent.
Some countries make it much easier to go and work there. Remember that the UK immigration system is an outlier. In Germany, for example, you can come and work as long as you have a job offer, and you can bring your family. There is no points system or any of that crap, if you come to work you are welcome.
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Do the EU countries have full shelves? I'm confident that their stock levels are at best no better than the UK.
Well, you're wrong. I was in Konstanz, Germany just yesterday and shelves were fully stocked.
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Re: Plenty of fuel (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes the EU does have full shelves. In fact many EU based newspapers have been reporting on the shortages in the UK as the result of brexit, because they themselves don't have those shortages but experienced the same global pandemic.
Well, there are a few empty shelves. M&S had to close it's EU shops because it couldn't get products from the UK out to them anymore, due to brexit. The EU started enforcing border checks and paperwork from January 1st and getting anything fresh or with meat out is a nightmare. Or at least it is for UK companies, at the moment EU companies have no checks when their stuff enters the UK and the government just pushed back the start of them to next year.
The government keeps asking the EU to help with the situation created by the "oven-ready" deal that they signed only in January, but of course the EU has no interest in reopening negotiations and is busy with it's own stuff. Also since the situation massively favours EU companies it's not like there is a problem for them.
Re: Plenty of fuel (Score:4, Insightful)
"Do the EU countries have full shelves? I'm confident that their stock levels are at best no better than the UK."
Yes, Marks&Spencer closed 11 shops in France, apparently importing pre-made sandwiches from a third country like Vietnam, Tonga or the UK is expensive and nonviable.
You need a veterinary certificate for the butter, the cheese, the ham and a phytosanitary certificate for the bread, the salad leaf and the tomato slice, according to their CEO between 700-1000 pages per lorry and they need 24 hours to do them, the French Douane checks every line and if there's a mistake the lorry goes back.
All the sandwiches are from yesterday, a bit like the UK really.
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Not being able to import more white men from the EU (not that there are any available; there are shortages there too)
There are not.
who will be willing to work in shitty conditions for low pay means haulage companies will have to improve conditions and improve pay.
Or, run desperate measures such as issuing emergency visas. If you think the UK will overhaul its trucking infrastructure over this, i hate to say you'll be sadly disappointed.
Seems to me there's a direct causation that Brexit will improve diversity and raise wages for a currently exploited group of workers. I can support that.
You do know the UK lost 25,000 drivers over this, right? Diversity!
Re: Plenty of fuel (Score:4, Informative)
Fact is... Britain has an empty shelve problem since january... all of Britain, no.. Northern Ireland does not, the entire EU does not have an emtpy shelve problem. The empty shelves are Brexit only period, you can blame Covid, guess what the rest of Europe has to deal with it too not only the brits, we never had empty shelves sure, early 2020 in the first wave we have had a toilet paper drought and later flour drought and spaghetti drought, but that was it and that was caused by overbuying.
Re: Plenty of fuel (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember toilet rolls? Turned out US production capacity was 120% of average demand. Enough for an outbreak of the shits. Not enough for everyone to fill their loft with toilet paper.
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UK production in some areas is down, e.g. many crops are now rotting in the ground due to lack of workers to pick them. Used to be many would come on working holidays from the EU, but not anymore.
Other things like toilet paper, well the manufacturing is there but there is nobody to haul them to the supermarkets. That results in half empty shelves, which makes people worry about the supply and buy more of it.
Journalists are only a small part of the problem, the real issue is that there are real shortages tha
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You think fuel stations should carry enough reserves to fill every car in the country at the same time?
That's a lot of stock tied up for a once-every-decade event.
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You think fuel stations should carry enough reserves to fill every car in the country at the same time?
Please forgive me for being a little cheeky on this one, but: it's not enough to have a brain, you also have to know how to use it.
And yes, I do think that.
As someone already pointed out elsewhere in this thread, half a tank on average is "business as usual" for gas stations. What we're talking about right now, in contrast to that, is not orders of magnitude more. It's mostly just the other half of the tank. Yes, some people may also fill up a canister or two, but we're talking another 20-40 liters or so, m
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What you're forgetting is that petrol stations receive 1-2 deliveries a week.
So even assuming everybody fills their car every 2 weeks, there'll be 2-3 deliveries to restock through that period.
If everybody fills their car on the same day, you now need to supply 3-4 times your normal stock levels in a single day.
Your argument is that they should have the reserves to do that. So you've just tripled or quadrupled the capital tied up in stock, purely to handle a very very rare event.
It doesn't make financial se
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Re: Plenty of fuel (Score:2)
I don't even get the toilet paper thing. I mean, toilet paper is good. But if I don't have any I'll survive (cloths, showers, Tom Clancy novels, all good substitutes in the event I run out). Surely food is the important one, yet all the tp hoarders I saw had trollies full of toilet paper with a few microwave meals thrown in.
Maybe they think they can trade paper for food.
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Most people don't do a lot of thinking, it's mostly just consuming with some occasional regurgitation, mostly intact. Thinking is hard if you're not used to it.
When such people panic, the results are best described with references to decapitated poultry.
When it was announced that people were panic buying TP I went ahead and bought two normally-large (not even costco-esque) packages from my local grocery outlet. It turned out one would have been enough to ride out the panic buying shortages, so I contributed
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When the panic buying started, I realized that my rolls will last another 4-6 weeks and by then the capacities would very likely be sorted. So I didn't bother panicking.
And, lo and behold, that's what happened.
I really don't understand what people thought would happen. That we run out of TP and that this, of all things, won't get manufactured anymore? I mean, ok, there are a few old Soviet jokes circulating about the lack of proper TP in the former East Bloc (like "Why is there only the choice of rough and
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I tend to have a stock of "generic" materials. I have a stock of rice or pasta, because they are mostly interchangeable and both have shelf life close to eternity. I also have a stock of tissue or toilet paper, because they, too, can substitute for each other.
Of course I try to have all available, but in household quantity. If one runs out, it's not exactly a big deal and I can use the substitute until I can restock.
Supply Chain Logistics (Score:3)
1. Supply Chain "Optimization" (Greed)
The companies that operate the gas stations, haulage companies and refineries know that refined gasoline sat in underground tanks has a cost that isn't making them any money. What's the point of investing say $150,000-$200,000 in gasoline stored in underground tanks at a gas station - to give the station a reserve of 2-3 weeks - when that money could be put in an
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You speak with such authority but you are wrong on lots of this.
1 is correct -- just-in-time is much more efficient but much less resilient.
2 is incorrect -- the amount of fuel consumed in the UK has been broadly static for at least 20 years.
https://www.racfoundation.org/... [racfoundation.org]
https://assets.publishing.serv... [service.gov.uk]
3 is irrelevant -- we're not short of refined fuel per se (see 2), we're short of refined fuel in the right places because we're short of drivers. If we'd had an extra refinery in place, that would have d
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And the reason is that there are about 100,000 truck drivers less available in the UK than pre-Brexit. Additionally, about 10,000 truck drivers licenses are not handed out yet as the future drivers could
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Re:Plenty of fuel (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly. German LGV drivers don't need jobs in the UK, they're good with what they get in Germany. Polish LGV drivers are candidates for foreign jobs because of worse domestic conditions. And if UK makes things less attractive, they go elsewhere. It's actually that simple.
Of course Brexiteers don't accept Brexit's role in anything bad, no matter how obvious.
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Supplies are not short. ... loads of people are going around with full tanks and the stations are empty.
What exactly would you call the situation for all the people who don't have a full tank?
Me? I'd call it a fuel shortage.
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so now loads of people are going around with full tanks and the stations are empty.
So what you're saying is there's a fuel shortage? You can split hairs using arbitrary geography all you want, but the reality is if I need fuel and can't get it at the petrol station I'm closest to then there's a shortage. Whether that shortage is caused by panic buying from people who read the Daily Mail (I just did a quick search of Guardian, BBC, and FT and all of them correctly claim just a few petrol stations closed due to HGV driver issues), or whether there's an actual supply disruption into the term
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Funny you claim that. I have no first or second hand information about the fuel situation, but I've got some British colleagues at work who have gone home to visit friends in the last few months - and they all report back about random empty shelves and that the UK really seem to have a transportation problem ..
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Journalists printing news instead of Royal weddings?
Inconceivable!
Propaganda? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Propaganda? (Score:2)
In my country, companies faces shortage of metal, wood and others building materials. And that's what I know because I work with a building company. Seeing prices going up eveywhere, I guess shortage happen there too. My country didn't leave EU. It's just the by-product of covid political response.
I haven't read a single line about those shortages, but, hell, what I have read about Brexit producing shortages eveywhere in UK.
Re: Propaganda? (Score:2)
Reports like that one from UN ? http://www.fao.org/3/ne001fr/n... [fao.org]
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A catastrophic shortage of 100,000 hgv drivers.
Unlike Poland with half the population, who are short of only 147,000 hgv drivers.
Because of Brexit, of course. You fucking clown.
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The thing with Poland is that living quality is relatively low compared to most of Western Europe. While living under those conditions is relatively cheap, wages are low, hence you have a lot of Polish workers working in countries with better pay.
You can really see the same thing in most Eastern European EU countries, their workers are migrating to the more wealthy countries,
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Re:Propaganda? (Score:5, Insightful)
I live in the EU. There's no shortage of food, petrol or other goods & prices remain the same as usual. We can't blame the UK's supply issues on the COVID-19 pandemic. If a country arbitrarily kicks out a significant percentage of its workforce, they can expect these problems. Leaving the wealthiest trading block in world was also a pretty dumb move.
What is going to be a problem is when the UK govt cuts off necessary emergency support to the poorest sections of society too soon while energy prices & retail prices are soaring. Though being called inhumane has never stopped the Tories in the past.
Re: (Score:3)
But the current shortages have done exactly that:
https://www.chargedretail.co.u... [chargedretail.co.uk]
https://www.cips.org/supply-ma... [cips.org]
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/... [walesonline.co.uk]
So good for HGV drivers right?
Re:Propaganda? (Score:5, Insightful)
And finally, we have Brexit. Which has undoubtedly been a factor, but one of several
Actually Brexit is 3 of the 4 factors you've listed.
- Quarantine rules wouldn't be much of an issue if it weren't for Brexit and if the UK were part of the EU's unified travel policy. Thanks Brexit
- Living standards where labour has come from has crept up a bit, but not significantly, and unlike the UK which saw a mass exodus in such labour the rest of wealthy western Europe has not. Thanks Brexit.
That choice has allowed the government to do exactly what it just did: increase visas when needed, decrease them when it isn't. Before Brexit this wasn't a power the government held on immigration. This site used to be "news for nerds".
The nerd in me understands that not needing something at all is better than having the choice. But I guess you gotta keep those damn foreigners out, you know, Schrodinger's immigrant, the one who sits around on nothing but welfare while also stealing your job.
Why issue visas at all? You're your own nation, drive your own trucks. Or is that one of those jobs beneath you that you rather some dirty foreigner did?
Re: (Score:2)
The snarky acknowledgement that the shortage of drivers and the empty shelves and fuel stations has been made worse by Brexit is noted. The real issue is that having effectively deported the Europeans by a combination of hatred for them in newspapers like the Daily Express and returning home during the pandemic I don't think they are coming back anyway. So the other issues like delayed qualifications from the pandemic and IR35 are not going to be fixed by importing drivers on lousy short term permissions. W
Re:Propaganda? (Score:5, Interesting)
A lot of the ones who left during the pandemic can't return now. They had pre-settled status, which is what you get if you had been in the UK for less than 5 years prior to brexit. Under those rules if you are out of the country for more than 6 months your pre-settled status lapses and you would have to apply for a normal visa to get back in.
Another issue is that it's now almost impossible to bring family members to the UK, so working here is at best a temporary thing and not something where you can settle down and your kids can grow up.
A lot of the drivers working here were actually moving between the continent and the UK regularly, driving lorries through Dover for example. While in the UK they would do some domestic deliveries with their vehicle too. Now that they need a visa to do that they just aren't bothering, there is plenty of work in the EU.
These things are a direct result of brexit. And not just any brexit, but the extremely hard, damaging brexit that the Tories delivered.
Not a disaster. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not a disaster. (Score:5, Interesting)
>Northern Ireland violence
Brexit has started the UK down the slippery slope that ends in the reunification of Ireland.
I expect to see this in my lifetime.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
"Spain will never allow that,"
Strange, they already said multiple times that they will, you must have missed it.
Re:Not a disaster. (Score:5, Interesting)
It looks likely that the Northern Irish Assembly will collapse in the next few weeks and there will be an election. The Unionists will lose badly and the Republicans will be in a good position to demand a border poll.
Scotland is also going to have another referendum in the next couple of years. If they vote for independence it will make the case much stronger in Ireland too.
That also puts the UK government in a very difficult position. On the one hand they want to campaign against Scottish independence on the grounds that a border between Scotland and England will be bad, but on the other hand they need to make the border between Northern Ireland and GB work well so that it avoids Irish reunification.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Not a disaster. (Score:4, Funny)
All right, but apart from the full shelves, petrol supplies, energy market, peace in Northern Ireland, protection from populist leaders, freedom of movement, free trade, membership of a powerful trading-block and economic prosperity, what has the EU ever done for us?
Three months (Score:2)
Open trade is correlated with growth (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
This isn't going to solve anything... (Score:5, Informative)
Firstly, it is months too late - the government were warned numerous times about the problems we were going to face.
They did exactly what they did during many phases of the pandemic "nothing to worry about", sat on their hands, then, at the last moment, U-turned.
Secondly, there's a HGV driver shortage across the entire EU. It's just that the UK has the added issue of Brexit, so we don't get to share the problem with a wider group of countries, as part of a single market.
Thirdly, they are not going to get 5000 drivers (which isn't enough anyway), because drivers are in demand across the EU, get paid better in the EU, have better services, such as parking, toilet facilities etc. - and don't have to fill in reams of paperwork.
What would you prefer?
The chance of getting stuck at ports for hours, having to take a shit on the side of the road because there's no toilets or pee in a bottle (this is the sad truth!), having to work extra hours, because regulations have be lessened to try and solve the problem
OR
No ports to get stuck at, free access across the entire EU, better pay and better facilities? - there's TONS of work for HGV drivers in the EU, they are spoiled for choice.
What we are seeing the UK, is the impact of the Tory governments own doing - Brexit.
It is only going to get worse, much much worse.
The Tories have been "lucky" up until now (yes, strange use of the word luck there), they've been able to hide behind the pandemic.
Brexit has been messily covered over by a "pandemic carpet", yet you can see the elephant shape under that carpet in the room.
We're also clearly seeing the impact from changing shopping habits.
Mainly due to Amazon, the public have come to expect "next day delivery" as the norm, with their Prime service.
The sheer volume of pointless purchases made simply exacerbates the problem of requiring more vehicles in the supply chain.
It's a perfect storm and a huge part of it is because of Brexit.
Re: (Score:3)
On the fuel shortage, as others have commented, this isn't due to lack of it, but lack of drivers.
We are assured that things will get back to normal within days, but that now rests in the hands of the public.
Some petrol stations (gas stations), have their own drivers and pick up fuel directly from depots, many don't.
But in a market where HGV drivers now call the shots, there's nothing preventing them going to work for the highest bidder.
They are being offered sign on bonuses, so there's also nothing stoppin
can't wait for their reaction to next shock (Score:2)
That despite the emergency visas, probably almost nobody is coming.
First of all, they are making 5000 emergency visas, while the current truck driver shortage is more like 100,000 people. Second, the UK has made it abundantly clear to these people that they are not wanted in the UK. Why would any drivers take on the offer without a MASSIVE increase in pay? It's not like there's shortage of work for them. The foreign drivers don't need the UK, the UK needs the foreign drivers.
What an amazing offer! (Score:4, Interesting)
Pay more? (Score:2)
A) UK kicks out tens of thousands of EU truck drivers. (Supply Reduction)
B) UK requires 100,000 truck drivers. (Demand Increase)
C) Companies in UK pay more for UK-based truck drivers?
I mean, I know that businesses don't want it to work that way--but clearly that's what people want. It also means the costs of goods will go up as the costs of delivery go up.
Note to UK voters: That is how you fuck yourself (Score:4, Insightful)
And with a wire-brush that is. It starts with not thinking before voting. It continues with believing complete fantasies spouted by known bad actors.
Now, a minority of you is sane and did not vote for this utter stupidity. You have my compassion for being stuck with morons that will vote themselves an obvious catastrophe because they do not even have a minimal understanding of how things work.
That said, to everybody that voted for BREXIT: What did you think would happen? Absolutely _nothing_ of this is unexpected. And it will get worse until the UK re-joins the EU, this time without any special conditions because the EU has had it up to here with your arrogance, incompetence and stupidity.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Pretty fucking great. We have a trade deal with the EU, better trade deals than the EU with the non-EU, and no imposition of laws by the EU.
It's a massive win. I'm still happy.
Re:tHe SiNgApOrE oF eUrOuPe (Score:5, Insightful)
And the UK also had trade deals with the rest of the world because the EU hammered them out with its economic weight & bargaining power. Now the UK has fuck all and has to crawl like a supplicant to the likes of the US, China et al and beg for whatever deal it can get. And they WILL fuck the UK over. You claim no imposition of laws by the EU but you'll get imposition of laws to please these other countries. Changes to food standards, changes to energy providers, changes to data & privacy, changes to health care.
And all the while the economy will suffer, businesses will continue to fail, shortages will happen, and internal ructions like Scottish & Northern Ireland nationalism will fester. What a win!
Re: (Score:3)
Re:tHe SiNgApOrE oF eUrOuPe (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Thanks for linking to the anti-brexit BBC and to the politically biased fullfact.
The "anti-brexit" BBC which has effectively banned criticism of Brexit [thelondoneconomic.com] from the channel. This is true "eat your own babies" crazy talk of the kind that you only normally see from the Daily Express. Can I ask, was there some traumatic event in your childhood that you now blame on the EU and which you have never been able to keep from your mind?
Re:tHe SiNgApOrE oF eUrOuPe (Score:5, Insightful)
You already had a great deal with the EU. Thatcher did that. Back in 85. The UK rebate [wikipedia.org]. It pretty much meant that you did pay WAY less than what you should have paid to the EU, along with a couple other sweet deals that I still don't know why the rest of Europe bent over backwards to hand you.
But fortunately, you blew it. Phew. That was really getting annoying. Thanks for nixing that.