Boris Johnson temporarily 'parks' Brexit to curb the truckers' crisis

Brexit was the promise to regain control of the borders -

take back control

, the slogan used in English - and preserve jobs and social benefits for the British.

Faced with the political disaster of long lines of drivers at gas stations or empty shelves in supermarkets, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has chosen to put aside ideology for a while and bet on pragmatism, even if it involves some embarrassment.

Johnson has approved the temporary granting of 5,000 visas for EU truckers to work in the UK.

And another 5,000 so that the British meat industry can rehire community workers - mainly from Eastern Europe - and bring its processing plants to full capacity.

More information

• Empty shelves and lack of workers: pandemic and Brexit exacerbate UK supply crisis

• Editorial |

  'Bad immigration initiative in the UK'

It will be a solution for the next six months. Enough, Downing Street calculates, so that Christmas does not end up as a disaster, threatening the stability of the Conservative government. Throughout Friday and Saturday, thousands of drivers have collapsed gas stations across the country to stockpile fuel. The government's call for calm, unable to curb the feeling of panic, has not served any purpose. Some media even showed photographs of users filling cans with gasoline after having filled the tank of their vehicles. Of the more than 8,000 service stations spread throughout the United Kingdom, only 1% (about 80) have had to close some of their pumps due to lack of some type of fuel. BP has only completely suspended service at 20 of its stores.But it has been impossible to contain the nerves of thousands of citizens, who have launched to refuel.

The cause of these supply problems is not the gasoline shortage. There is plenty. Rather, it resides in the lack of truck drivers to transport fuel to refueling points. The British transport industry estimates the number of drivers required to keep things running smoothly at 90,000. There are about 50,000 who left their job during the pandemic, either because they retired or because they chose another profession. In addition, some 20,000 drivers from the EU returned to their countries.

The new immigration law, passed immediately after Brexit, establishes a point system for entering the UK. Community citizens no longer have priority over those of the rest of the world. And the temporary temporary quotas for contracting - mainly for health and the agricultural sector - have been scarce and limited in scope. This exceptionality was never contemplated for carriers, as the Johnson Government now intends to do. And not all the sector is convinced that the solution of temporary visas, reduced and delayed, is the correct one. "I think what we are seeing has to do above all with the salary level of drivers," he explained to the

BBC.

Toby Ovens, Managing Director of one of the UK's leading transport and logistics companies, Broughton Transport Solutions. "Margins in the transportation industry are very tight and you don't have the money to raise wages without this not having an impact on the price that will be passed on to customers," says Ovens.

That was the ideological battle that had been unleashed within the Johnson administration. Many of his ministers, beginning with Transport, Grant Shapps, but especially Interior, Priti Patel, champion of the hard wing of the Conservative Party, refused to give their arm to twist with the visas. First, because one of the goals of the Downing Street Immigration Act was to force British industry to train and hire nationals, and to end decades of low productivity and low wages by hiring community workers. . That is why the government's first response to the truckers' crisis - which, indeed, affects the whole of Europe - was to speed up the examination procedures to obtain a heavy vehicle driving license,and demand more attractive salaries from the transport companies. It was of no use. But most of all, the tug of war, combined with continuous headlines in the queue press at gas stations and empty shelves, made Boris Johnson very nervous. Having just returned from his trip to the United States on Friday, he urgently gathered his ministers, took out the colors and demanded a solution to the problem. Anything but arriving at Christmas with a situation that reminds, even remotely, atAnything but arriving at Christmas with a situation that reminds, even remotely, atAnything but arriving at Christmas with a situation that reminds, even remotely, at

Winter of Discontent

1978,

that overthrew a Labor government and opened the doors to the

Thatcher Decade

.

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The UK's main employers' association, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), which has been warning for months of labor shortages in many key sectors - primarily transport, agriculture and hospitality - has celebrated as a victory Johnson's decision. "It is a shame that the government needed to see queues at gas stations to make a decision," said Tony Danker, CEO of CBI. “Basically, the government thought that after Brexit, we would have an immigration system that would let in workers with the skills we need, not the rest. And now he has realized that some of the discarded skills we also need, albeit seasonally, "Danker explained to the BBC.

The next few weeks will show whether the chosen solution alleviates the transportation crisis, or whether Johnson has temporarily renounced his main ideological banner, Brexit, to no avail.

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