Brexit consequences in Great Britain: Boris Johnson's bet

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The pictures have been going around the world for days: British drivers are running out of fuel.

The reason: There is a lack of truck drivers who bring the gasoline from the refineries and depots to the filling stations.

There are not only bottlenecks in fuel: some supermarket shelves are also empty, the problem has been apparent for weeks.

Brexit has massively exacerbated the shortage of truckers: Around 20,000 Eastern European truck drivers went back to their home countries, but new immigration rules mean that they cannot easily return.

Nicolai von Ondarza / Science and Politics Foundation

“The British government and Boris Johnson already knew that one of the problems with Brexit could be that the British labor market was short of manpower.

And the economy warned louder and louder over the summer that these problems would also manifest themselves in the supermarkets, but also in gasoline, in the gasoline supply.

The British government ignored this for a long time because it did not want to admit the problems of Brexit and until recently it also said to the population: This is a problem of the pandemic and not a problem of Brexit. "

Given the long lines at gas stations, the UK government has given in and issued 5,000 visas for foreign drivers - by February.

However, the demand is extremely manageable: So far, only 127 people have accepted the offer.

In the long term, the British should be trained and do the job, at fair wages:

Boris Johnson / UK Prime Minister

»I want wages to continue growing, and I want productivity to continue growing too.

And what I don't think is a good idea Dan, we're talking about some of the supply chain problems here, what I think is a bad idea is to go back to the low wages, low investment, low skill like we had before. ”

However, it is estimated that there is a shortage of 100,000 lorry drivers in the UK. Meanwhile, the military helps out and sits behind the wheel of tankers. But that cannot be a permanent solution. And Boris Johnson has since changed his strategy:

Nicolai von Ondarza / Science and Politics Foundation

»And he is now arguing: Yes, that is also one of the consequences of Brexit. We are changing our economic model with Brexit. We want to move away from dependence on low wage labor and high immigration towards an economy based on high wages and low immigration. But the question is whether he can really do it. That means he will really have problems redirecting the British economy in such a way that it can do well without this workforce and at the same time it does not end up with the population in the form of higher price increases and higher inflation. "

The supply problems have opened the eyes of many Britons to the consequences of their decision to leave the European Union.

Now only just under a third of the British population sees Brexit as a success.

Nicolai von Ondarza / Science and Politics Foundation

“The British see the problems and are now blaming Brexit as well. But they are not yet turning their backs on Boris Johnson and his administration. But that is also due to the weakness of the Labor Party. At her party congress last week, she again showed herself to be very divided. Opposition leader Keir Stamer is even less popular than Boris Johnson. And it is precisely the many voters in the working class that the Labor Party lost to Boris Johnson in 2019, those are the ones Boris Johnson is reaching with his message that he wants to achieve wage increases in Great Britain for British workers. "

These people here at the gas station are now primarily interested in one thing: How and where do they get their tank full?

Winter could still hold some nasty surprises in store for the British.