So a few days ago:
"No fuel shortage", says transport secretary Grant Shapps.
"There is plenty of petrol in the country" - Grant Shapps (a few days ago).

First it was, most forecourts (gas stations) where abit low, but then 5-10 or so went dry.
They release a statement asking people not to panic, theres enough petrol, its just transporting it (Drivers) is proveing a issue.
What happends? People notice, panic, and go out to fill up their cars (because, you need your car to get to work ect right?)
A day goes by and now its 100-200 forecourts, going empty.
Again, more "please dont panic buy!" and rationing for normal cars is put in place (max 30£ fill up pr car).

A few days more, and now its "between 50% and 90%" of its members' forecourts are dry." - Petrol Retailers Association.
Reality is, alot of people cant find fuel now (ei. probably closer to 90%, than they let on).

A true problem of Brexit is that UK hasn't been able to replace EU market with something of comparable size.
But these shortages also show that a big benefit of remaining in the EU was being able to hire underpaid and overexploited truck drivers and day labourers aplenty. Probably good PR for those that like the most ruthless capitalism, but not so good for anybody else.

Eu tradeing block is the biggest in the world, and with the ties it has to trade to others.
There is no "something other of equal comparable size".

Also there is "gravity" to trade.
It doesnt make sense to trade half ways accross the world, if you dont need too.
Ei. proximity is a big thing.


"But these shortages also show that a big benefit of remaining in the EU was being able to hire underpaid and overexploited truck drivers and day labourers aplenty."

tbh UK has worse working conditions / pay for HGV drivers than most european countries (alot of countries in the EU, theres easy parking, rest stops with toliets/showers, ect ect). Apparently theres lack of HGV drivers in europe too, so it was odd that you could get away with it in the UK.


It also shows:

UK did nothing in the 5 years since the leave vote.
You knew this was going to be a problem (HGV drivers), but no one thought ahead to try and fix it, before it became a issue.



"Probably good PR for those that like the most ruthless capitalism, but not so good for anybody else."

Ruthless capitalism?
1) UK has modern day slavery, in numbers shocking to rest of europe.

2) Also, to fix this HGV driver issue (only until christmas, because Boris Johnson, wants a marketing PR slogan, of "saveing christmas"), your asking for 5000 to come on 3 month visa, to help fix the issue.  It takes 1-2 months of training (if you dont have the licence), so its 1 month, and then on christmas day, you get kicked out of the country.

3) Your cutting universal credits by £20 at a time, when gas/heating prices are skyrocketing, food prices are climbing, inflation is up, tax increase.....
300,000 children live in homes that will go below the poverty line , after this cut, in the UK (total its more than half a million people).  Theres elderly saying they will have to choose between heating/food. Theres people (elderly) that will freeze to death this winter in the UK (higher numbers than normal).

Is that ruthless enough?

kicking people out that come to help, on christmas day? haveing children's homes fall into poverty, and letting elderly freeze to death?

*edit:
Johnson apparently has now extended the emergency visa scheme for HGV drivers, it will now run until March 2022.
Also from Monday, 100 military drivers with licences to drive these trucks, will start helping out.

Now that it's also affecting fuel and heating, I think it starts to sink in to at least some of the more hardline voters.

I know that UK can be ruthless, but as bad as it can be for some categories, it looks like staying in the EU allowed it to import workers willing to accept even worse conditions.
Surely UK managed Brexit in the worst possible way and these are the results, anyhow for this UK should mostly blame those that came before Johnson.
About truckers, I wouldn't be surprised if Boris will have to offer even longer VISAs and better conditions. Most probably he already knows it, but he needs the majority of brits to ask for new measures before proposing them, he just doesn't want to get crushed and burned between brexiters and no-brexiters.

Michael Lambert - Why Brexit is a Disaster and How Things are About to Get Very Much Worse:

I think this summarizes well how brexit, in its first year (out of the grace periode), has unfolded.
Well worth a watch.

So its been a few months.... again, time for a update.
2021 came and went, and now we have numbers (for trade, for the year).

Brexit blamed as UK misses out on global trade rebound
https://www.ft.com/content/021c629d-5853-4111-9600-ab5f0eb65a35

"Britain’s 14 per cent fall in goods exports stands in contrast to 8.2 per cent rise for rest of world"

UK goods exports have underperformed the rest of the world in what experts said was a sign that Brexit might be limiting the country’s trade performance.

The volume of UK goods exports fell 14 per cent in the three months to January compared with the same period in 2020, before the pandemic, according to the world trade monitor published on Friday by the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, known as the CPB. This was in stark contrast to the global average of an 8.2 per cent rise over the same period.

The data, which incorporates Office for National Statistics data for the UK, also showed that Britain compared poorly with the performance of all advanced countries where goods exports rose 5 per cent.

The analysis also showed that the UK was underperforming over the long term as it was the only country tracked by the CPB where goods exports remained below the 2010 average.

“While most other advanced economies have seen a strong recovery in trade, UK exports remain below pre-pandemic levels,” said Jonathan Portes, professor of economics at King’s College London.

The OBR noted that “none of the new free trade agreements or other regulatory changes announced so far would be sufficient” to have a material impact on its forecasts for UK trade. It has estimated that leaving the EU would result in the total UK imports and exports being 15 per cent lower than if Britain had remained part of the EU.

^ note its currently more like a 20% dip compaired to the other advanced economies in europe. Ei. Worse than their own 15% prediction.

also as a commentator on FT noted:

"Oh, and don't mention the UK, barely tracking the Eurozone in terms of GDP growth... by spending insane amounts of borrowed money:

14.9% budget deficit in 2020
12.7% budget deficit in 2021

(below 7% avg in the Eurozone both years by way of comparison)"

^ fair enough, pandemics are hard to predict and handle.

Thoughts?

ofc, its to be expected, when you put up trade barriers (leaveing the single market), you get less trade.
I wonder what numbers about 2022 will say, come 2023.

So………. United Kingdom Brexiters!


How is it going? :)

fine thanks

Liss Truss seems to be hell-bent on destroying the british economy with her mini-budget.

No wonder British people have Truss issues right now...