Shortages and supply chain issues may just be the beginning of problems that have come from Conservative Brexit policy.
Amidst fuel shortages, rising gas prices and increasingly bare shelves, Boris Johnson refuses to blame Brexit for these issues. Early in October, Johnson claimed on the Andrew Marr Show that the UK was instead in a post-Brexit period of adjustment and that the British public can “look forward to better paid and higher skilled jobs.” This optimistic claim comes during a time where the consequences of the Brexit referendum seem to be catching up with both the UK and Conservative Party.
A survey conducted by the Road Haulage Association estimated that the UK is lacking over 100,000 lorry drivers needed to keep up with the supply and demand for petrol and food. The source of this deficit in qualified drivers can be tracked to the Conservative government’s post-Brexit visa laws.
The newly introduced point-based system for immigration requires migrants to be earning larger salaries and holding higher education qualifications to be granted a UK work visa. This policy is meant to ensure that only migrants entering high-skilled and high-paying jobs are allowed into the UK. The success of this system is evident in the current shortage of lorry drivers. Since being a driver is considered a low skilled job, many European drivers cannot qualify for a work visa.
In many ways, this is a self-fulfilling prophecy for those who voted remain. Why Vote Leave, a website in support of Brexit, promotes a “fairer system” without the EU, where people are welcomed into the UK “based on the skills they have”.
The implication here is that there will be less low-skilled workers denying UK workers job opportunities. However, the UK’s low unemployment statistic tells us that migrants were never really taking up too many jobs. Following the loss of European migrants, the UK is left with a large number of low-skilled jobs with not many workers available, or willing, to fill them.
Shortages are not a problem unique to the UK, but other European nations are not suffering to the same degree we are. Difficulty acquiring a visa aside, job opportunities are plentiful across Europe, leaving little incentive for drivers to work in the UK. This has resulted in financial officers predicting that the UK’s shortages could last until 2023.
This issue could cause major problems for the Conservative Party’s prospects next election. If the early panic buying of the Covid pandemic is any indication, the public will not respond well to the food shortages cause by the absence of lorry drivers.
Furthermore, shortages of Christmas essentials like turkeys and children’s toys, are looking inevitable. This will be the first Christmas since the pandemic that a newly vaccinated population will be hoping to enjoy. Instead of celebrating, disappointing festivities could build discontent for the Conservative Government.
There is also the looming threat of economic austerity. While the global economy is recovering after the pandemic, the UK’s unique post-Brexit position has compromised our economic growth. Starting strong at the start of the year, supply chain issues and shortages have stagnated our economy. The UK’s inflation rate has also gone up, hitting 3.2% this August, which is the highest rate of inflation in nearly a decade.
In response to these issues, the Conservative government had to offer temporary work visas. Likely, the aim behind this policy was to bide time for the “giant waking up” of the economy that Johnson has so famously touted. In reality, the government’s extension of these work visas into March next year suggests that they have utterly failed in preparing for such a radical shift in UK industry.
A comment made by European Union Commissioner Nicholas Schmit to German Press demonstrates the foreign perspective on Brexit. He notes that, “the UK is a direct example of how idiotic it is to say you will send foreign workers home.” This is an indictment of the entire UK, we voted out of the EU without properly understanding the trouble it could cause us.
However, the responsibility for Brexit does not fall on the public, but rather the government who initiated it. There has clearly been a great error in establishing a proper procedure for such an enormous change. This has finally caught up with the Conservatives who, since Cameron proposed the referendum in 2016, have failed to put the effort into ensuring that the public’s decision is carried out to a satisfactory standard. It is this inability to prepare for the changes in UK industry that has led to supply chain issues and shortages.
For the Conservative Party, there is a very real threat that the next few years could define them for decades. We’ve already seen how Tony Blair and the Iraq War has stigmatized the Labour Party. Now, we could see the pandemic and Brexit dominate the political discourse surrounding the Conservative Party long past their time in power.
The decisions made by Boris Johnson and his government in the next few years are crucial. There is a chance that Brexit could turn out to be a huge success story, that we can look back and remember that a rough period was all worth it in the end. However, given the issues the UK is already facing, this does not seem likely. We can only hope that Johnson is confident in his restructuring of the economy. For the sake of his legacy as Prime Minister, and the Conservatives next general election.
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