“The cold rooms didn’t have enough space to hold our crops, so we had to throw out the production for a week,” explains Iain Brown, vice president of East Scotland Growers (ESG). “And we haven’t had enough workers to harvest our vegetable crops, that is, they will be wasted.”
According to Brown, the two essential production tips: first, to get fresh food out of the ground and then to distribute it on supermarket shelves, are very successful due to lack of workers.
First, the lack of truck drivers, who carry fresh items such as cauliflower to and from the freezer facilities, meant that the ESG cooperative at some point had to launch production for a week, with an estimated cost of £ 1 million ($ 1.4 million). .
Second, Brown says many of the seasonal workers, who would come from countries like Romania and Bulgaria for a few months to harvest vegetables, are now missing.
“Some haven’t come because Covid’s regulations make it too difficult; others have made a lot of money and gone home earlier than expected.” This, according to Brown, meant that about 10-15% of his crop was destroyed, at a cost of about £ 200,000 ($ 277,000).
The shortage of truck drivers is probably the most immediate issue.
According to a spokesman for Logistics UK, it is estimated that the current shortage of drivers will range from 90,000 to 120,000. While Brexit is not entirely to blame, the fact that the UK no longer has easy access to European drivers has created a headache for the industry.
These people cannot simply be replaced by British workers. Aside from the fact that it can take up to nine months to qualify as a driver and cost up to £ 5,000 ($ 6,940) according to Logistics UK, the British are not lining up to take on these jobs.
“We have an aging staff in the UK and the image of working conditions for trucks [truck] drivers, unsafe parking spaces or resting places, have made it unattractive to many younger people, ”a spokesman for Logistics UK told CNN Business.
These shortages should be a gift to Johnson’s political opponents, who may claim that his claims of having a “baked-ready” Brexit deal in 2019 – the promise with which he won the general election – were false.
According to critics, the government was not adequately prepared for the inevitable consequences of Brexit and did not mitigate its initial impact.
According to the Office for National Statistics, British GDP growth came to a halt almost in July, in part due to supply chain problems and labor shortages. The British economy is still 2.1% smaller than before the pandemic, and some economists think the difference will not be offset until the second quarter of next year.
“Throughout the Brexit process, the government found its efforts to get companies and people prepared for the inevitable disorder to undermine their need to present Brexit as something that would be positive for the UK and the UK. ‘economy,’ says Sam Lowe, a senior researcher at the Center for European Reform. “This sparked confusing radio ads that didn’t even mention the word Brexit, the backward guide and last-minute heart changes.”
Worse, the Johnson administration is now in the strange position of refusing to implement a key part of the deal that it hailed as a great success.
Under the Protocol, goods can move freely between Northern Ireland and the Republic, avoiding the need for a hard border, an essential measure to prevent a return to sectarian violence on the island. The UK agreed that it would in turn protect the EU’s single market by enforcing controls on goods entering Northern Ireland from Britain.
In doing so, it effectively created a maritime border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, which would be very uncomfortable for Johnson, who likes to portray himself as an advocate for the Union. It would also be anathema to Belfast unionists, who this week threatened to collapse the region’s fragile power-sharing agreement on the issue.
The last thing Johnson, the man who led the Brexit campaign in 2016, wants to do is allow his opponents to claim that Brexit has not only cut Northern Ireland out of the rest of the UK, but has been able to exert a additional pressure on both finances and stability in the region.
This could explain why Brexit Minister David Frost said on Monday that the grace period allowing the movement of goods from Britain to Northern Ireland would be extended, without a fixed end point.
This, of course, has allowed the EU, the long-time bogeyman of Brexiteers, to take moral ground, reminding Britain that the Brexit agreement Johnson voluntarily signed is a legal treaty.
These issues, while important, are far from the only post-Brexit embarrassments that make Johnson’s “oven-ready” statements seem a little silly.
Lawmakers from Johnson’s own party have received phone calls from angry constituents because they have been unable to get their products to Europe due to Brexit.
All of these difficulties were predicted by numerous critics with Johnson, as industry bodies pressured the government to take alternative measures to mitigate the damage. Johnson has been repeatedly criticized by industry leaders and opponents for what they consider his reckless lack of preparation for Brexit.
Despite this, the consequences of Brexit are not being used by Johnson’s political opponents, who instead do so for internal reasons. But why?
“The problem with these kinds of stories is that they happen incrementally,” says Rob Ford, a professor of politics at the University of Manchester.
“One of the very tragic things about these stories is that in order for the public to pay attention to them, something really dramatic has to happen. Unfortunately, it could be an overworked truck driver crashing into a family car or children fall ill. malnutrition “.
Until then, Johnson can largely divert the blame for these problems to the pandemic. Ford notes that this goes well with his “Leave” voter base, many of whom are fed up with being told that Brexit was a disaster and are often willing to believe other explanations.
But Brexit is really starting to bite. It would never be the case that the United Kingdom was dissolved immediately. But little by little, many of the guarantees that were made in 2016 and over years of negotiations are tightening.
Perhaps one day Johnson will consider it politically appropriate to introduce greater mitigation against the inconveniences of Brexit. Still, even when it’s problematic: Admitting that you need damage control means there is damage to control.
And, as much of Johnson’s political legacy will be defined by leading the campaign to “liberate” Britain from Brussels, the longer he will be able to dodge criticism not only for Brexit as a concept, but for its chosen application, less will be his greatest success becomes a millstone around his neck.