Haulier shortage encapsulates the trade disaster of Brexit

As the trade realities of being a non-EU member kick in many businesses face losing customers if they cannot provide reliable delivery services, writes Chris Blackhurst

Drivers are put off by the prospect of waiting to pass through the ports of Dover or Folkestone (PA)

Imagine there was no war. No, it’s not a John Lennon song. Imagine too if there was no Partygate, no Covid.

Then, where would we be? Loudly discussing Brexit, that’s where. But because there are other, more important, issues on the agenda, the travails of British business after our exit from the EU remain largely unseen.

They are there, alright. This week, new data from the Office for National Statistics’ rolling three-month Business Insights survey revealed that over two-thirds of companies were reporting difficulties with export and import paperwork after Brexit. More than half reported facing challenges over customs duties and levies.

This, while road hauliers warn they cannot persuade enough EU drivers to come to the UK, and businesses face losing customers if they cannot provide reliable delivery services.

The drivers are put off by the prospect of being stuck in Kent, waiting to pass through Dover or Folkestone. While ministers and their supporters can claim some of the recent delays were made worse by cancellations of P&O ferry crossings, the industry is not so easily fobbed off and points to the underlying issue.

Shane Brennan, chief executive of the Cold Chain Federation, said the UK had developed a “post-Brexit perception problem” typified by the recent jams. “Businesses that we want to do business with are increasingly seeing us as too much hassle to deal with and that has to change if we are to recover lost ground,” he said.

Graham Eardley, managing director of Eardley International, based in Lockerbie in Scotland, said EU subcontractors were refusing work that risked leaving them stranded.

Nick Allen, chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, said: “Hauliers are reporting that they are struggling to get drivers willing to go to the UK if they are going to get delays getting home again and with the international shortage of drivers, they are able to be selective about what jobs they take,” he said.

They might as well be shouting into the noise of tens of lorry engines where this administration is concerned. Asked for a response to the industry’s complaints, the Department for Transport said the government was investing £32.5m to improve lorry parking facilities and that an issue with a post-Brexit computer system had been resolved but added that the lack of P&O sailings had exacerbated delays.

What’s telling about this reaction is that it totally avoids the problem. Rather than tackle the tailbacks due to the need to produce extra papers because the UK is no longer inside a free trade bloc, the government’s solution is to build more toilets for marooned drivers.

Rees-Mogg says the pandemic had caused ‘the most enormous disruptions to supply chains’ rather than Brexit (PA)

No matter that the M20 in Kent frequently resembles one giant lorry park, no matter that meat and other perishable goods are simply not getting across the English Channel in time. No matter, too, that 85 per cent of the trucks are driven by EU workers who can find alternative work elsewhere, nearer their homes.

The sense of denial is monstrous. Still, talk to any Brexiteer about what we’ve gained by leaving the EU and the likelihood is they will mutter something about “taking back control”. It’s repeated, robot fashion.

Show me the benefits. The one often cited is that the UK was able to roll out its vaccination programme quicker. The EU was soon able to catch us up.

I do know that where I live there are signs galore for bar and restaurant workers, and that when you quiz the bosses why they will invariably cite quitting the EU – staff went home, a move that coincided in many cases with the onset of Covid, and they simply have not returned.

The bars and restaurant vacancies we see because they’re advertised in the windows. What is less obvious are the gaps caused elsewhere. In the City, firms are complaining that EU employees departed and have not returned. The gaming sector is another, also hit especially hard by EU employees going – gaming was always prone, relying on a high proportion of young, EU digital and tech specialists. But gaming is one of those industries ministers love to cite as leading our glorious world-beating future. If we cannot get find replacements, we will not be defeating anything.

So far, not one of the much-vaunted new, post-EU trade deals has made me sit up and applaud. There’s nothing in them, as far as I can see, that will compensate for what we’ve lost.

The attitude of ministers and Brexiteers is to say, “move on”, that we must now put the conflict over remaining and going behind us, that we will emerge stronger. Putting the vagueness on one side, I agree.

But I am not detecting much sense of urgency. Jacob Rees-Mogg is the Brexit “opportunities minister”. On a visit to Felixstowe, he blamed Covid. The pandemic had caused “the most enormous disruptions to supply chains”.

Added Rees-Mogg: “We’ve had containers simply being stuck in the wrong place, being stuck in Chinese ports, being stuck in the port of Los Angeles. This has been a global trade issue – and we do have to recover from the problems of Covid”.

Asked whether Brexit had reduced UK trade, he replied: “I think Brexit has been extremely beneficial for the country. I think the evidence that Brexit has caused trade drops is few and far between.”

Build more toilets. Problem solved.