And where's the arbitrary cut off point? That's one issue I have with nationalism. If you are descended from the Huguenots you are British. If from 1st generation Latvians you are foreign. If from the 50,000 Poles who settled here after the War..?

On the main topic, this is one argument where the tensions are such that I find it hard to make a firm stance. I am still to be convinced that Brexit has done anything but harm to this country and it will get worse. However, the current driver issue has as much to do with increased working conditions from the origin country of former drivers.

And you are correct in terms of local wages and working conditions. In fact, you had an unlikely ally this morning on this point from a spokesperson from the TUC (always said you were a lefty!). Low wages and awful working conditions were made possible by this country's lax employment protection and allowed foreign workers to be "exploited". Of course, they did not see it as such as they were happy to work for peanuts as it was twice the peanuts they could get picking cabbages in Romania. Unfortunately, with them gone, the farmers and haulers now have to persuade the British workers to take on the jobs on the same terms and the brits are saying "no".

Trouble is, the German Miracle largely existed on Germans (and later Turks) willing to take a cut to work in order to build up to something better. OK they would as they felt lucky just to be alive. However, the current crop of our people seem less inclined to accept those terms, meaning wages rise, inflation rises and businesses at the margin that only survived through "exploitation" going to the wall thereby leading to unemployment or them passing the cost down the chain thus causing further inflation and...

Yes but that doesn’t explain the reasons for driver shortages which are occurring in countries still within the EU so can’t be entirely Brexit related.
There was a description of J Rees-Mogg on Twitter as “a ludicrous haunted pencil”.

I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with sharing a motorway if the current crop of long term British unemployed behind the wheel of 18T trucks. Especially, if they are as bad as the stereotype makes them out to be.

It cost £3k to get an HGV licence. The barrier to entry for anyone who is unemployed is obvious. Perhaps hauliers should start picking up this cost on a loan basis.

Lot of good points i worked in freight forwarding for 8years my son 10 years, we had alot of Romanian drivers for a Italian firm.

Most was only in this country to send money home, all there time off was back to there homelands not uk. this driver shortage has been caused by haulage firms nothing todo with government or brexit They wanted cheap labour,

sorry most foreign drivers have a massive safety issue, alot was over the drink driver limit on a sunday night when they left to go back to italy, we had many lorrys stopped for driving past there driving time as well, this country let alot of drivers go because they wasnt going to work for 10k less for more hours, and at the end of the day trapping wasnt a good family job speed 5 days away from home every week not good

What we need is to not rely on cheap labour and sort opportunities, pay and working conditions out to stop this idiotic cycle. On a personal level, good luck to those who do work and succeed abroad.

Edited by Rudi Hedman (05 Oct 2021 3.40pm)

COYP

Transforming Britain into a high-wage economy by taking us through a phase of fuel shortages and supply chain disruptions is such a bold, brilliant strategy from the Tories I’m amazed they never mentioned it until about a week ago.

It's another throw away phrase to tide the voters over and the tory conference.