Brexit

[steve ridgway]

There have been a lot of empty shelves in the shops for a few weeks now due to the shortage of lorry drivers, and now it's caused McDonald's to run out of milkshakes.

Analysis of the latest ONS Labour Force Survey for the second quarter suggests that 14,000 EU lorry drivers left jobs in the UK in the year to June 2020, but only 600 had returned by July 2021.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58315152

Fortunately there are plenty of prisoners available to keep the meat industry going.

Meat industry leaders held talks with the government on Monday to discuss options of how businesses could link up with prisons to fill vacancies.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58303679

[Que]

The situation would be much worse if the UK hadn't postponed the introduction of import checks on, amongst other things, fresh produce and other foods from the EU.

This is against WTO (World Trade Organisation) rules, since it favours EU imports over imports from other countries.

But honestly, I doubt if these checks will ever be introduced by the UK govt. It simply cannot afford the consequences.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

What kinds of things are you seeing shortages of in grocery stores and supermarkets lately?  Is it mostly processed foods (which I understand had been a problem of here in the US, but since so little of the food that I buy is processed, it has seldom been an issue for me).  The kinds of things that I had heard were issues were things like pre-packaged meals.

PD

[steve ridgway]

Specific things I went looking for were bottled water and wine although there were gaps on the shelves elsewhere. They started talking about Christmas on the news at lunchtime.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Specific things I went looking for were bottled water and wine although there were gaps on the shelves elsewhere. They started talking about Christmas on the news at lunchtime.

Low on bottled water and wine!    And was the talk about Christmas being to expect shortages of holiday food/treats?  Or that you could be waiting that long for things to return to some sort of normalcy?

PD

[Irons]

Specific things I went looking for were bottled water and wine although there were gaps on the shelves elsewhere. They started talking about Christmas on the news at lunchtime.

We have, or rather did have, a collection of garden green waste fortnightly by our local council at a cost of roughly £50 a year. Due to driver shortages bin pickup is now monthly.
Brexit has not been the predicted disaster forecast by opponents, but the one area it has affected UK life is labour shortages caused by workers from the continent returning home. It is a problem and I can only see it getting worse.

[Que]

The interesting thing is that that the disruptions of the food supply chains is not caused by food shortages as such, but by labour shortages. This must affect (many) other sectors as well? Labour shortages are very bad for any economy and will drive up prices and by consequence inflation.

Another observation is that in the run up to Brexit immigration, even if the overwhelming of immigrants came to join the UK workforce, was perceived by Brexiteers as a big problem that Brexit was going to fix.

[steve ridgway]

Yes Que, it's mostly labour shortages due to relying on EU workers to do the jobs that young people in the UK don't want to do, such as picking fruit and vegetables or pub and restaurant work at minimum wage which is lower for people below 23. And who'd want to start a career in lorry driving with all the talk of self driving vehicles?

[The new erato]

So Brexit was about bringing back work to Britons that don't want it?

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Yes Que, it's mostly labour shortages due to relying on EU workers to do the jobs that young people in the UK don't want to do, such as picking fruit and vegetables or pub and restaurant work at minimum wage which is lower for people below 23. And who'd want to start a career in lorry driving with all the talk of self driving vehicles?

As an aside, why are wages lower for people below 23?

PD

[steve ridgway]

As an aside, why are wages lower for people below 23?

I suppose it gives the youngest a chance of employment as they'll have no experience whatsoever.

https://www.minimum-wage.co.uk/

[Irons]

The interesting thing is that that the disruptions of the food supply chains is not caused by food shortages as such, but by labour shortages. This must affect (many) other sectors as well? Labour shortages are very bad for any economy and will drive up prices and by consequence inflation.

Another observation is that in the run up to Brexit immigration, even if the overwhelming of immigrants came to join the UK workforce, was perceived by Brexiteers as a big problem that Brexit was going to fix.

Exactly. Quite ironic.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

I imagine that the long waits experienced by the truck drivers trying to get their loads on through (due to new paperwork, checks, etc.) drove (pardon the pun) a lot of them away too.  Why deal with all of that hassle if you can find some other work less stressful?  Just a thought.

PD

[Madiel]

So Brexit was about bringing back work to Britons that don't want it?

Not much different to debates in the US about undocumented immigrants.

[Que]

For the time being no import checks on foods. 

Now to that is added an extension of the use of EU product standards and CE marks:

UK in Brexit climbdown as safety rule deadline extended

My prediction: independent UK product standards are never going to happen.
Setting up a separate certification system is terribly expensive and adding a national certification requirement creates a ton of extra red tape for producers and importers. There will probably be another "fudge" in which EU standards are unilaterally  rubber stamped into UK standards. I believe Brexiteers called that "rule taking"...

[71 dB]

So Brexit was about bringing back work to Britons that don't want it?

No. If I have understood correctly, it was done for these two reasons:

1) Detachment from EU regulations allows UK to take steps more easily toward crony capitalism to benefit the rich.
2) Right wing populists such as Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson exploded the ignorance and xenophobia of Brits to advance their political careers.

[Madiel]

For the time being no import checks on foods. 

Now to that is added an extension of the use of EU product standards and CE marks:

UK in Brexit climbdown as safety rule deadline extended

My prediction: independent UK product standards are never going to happen.
Setting up a seperate certification system is terribly expensive and adding a national certification requirement creates a ton of extra red tape for producers and importers. There will probably be another "fudge" in which EU standards are unilaterally  rubber stamped into UK standards. I believe Brexiteers called that "rule taking"...

Australia regularly adopts EU or American standards for things because yes, it really isn't worth it. The UK is of course a bigger population/market than us, but for the bureaucracy that actually has to administer these things (as opposed to the people who voted for Brexit) I can't imagine there's many cases where they look at the EU system and think there's something fundamental they want to change.

[71 dB]

Related to Brexit the EU has since July had new customs practices for orders coming from outside the EU. I have not ordered anything outside the EU for months. I believe ordering Amazons outside the EU is pretty smooth, but ordering from smaller sellers who do not have smooth arrangements seems to be really cumbersome. You need to do customs clearances and pay fees for that and what I am hearing the crappy Finnish postal service (one of the worst functioning things in here) may circulate the package for weeks before finally delivering it to the customer. No thanks!

For this reason, for me who used to order a lot from the UK this situation is really frustrating. Well, I have been ordering a lot more from Germany and locally, but that certainly is limiting compared to the happy days when I was able to order from the US tax free up to 45 euros worth! Nowadays everything is so pricy (taxes/shipping costs) that it doesn't make sense to order from the US. So, Germany and local markets it is... ...it was fun to make business with the Brits, but they ruined it.

[Irons]

Australia regularly adopts EU or American standards for things because yes, it really isn't worth it. The UK is of course a bigger population/market than us, but for the bureaucracy that actually has to administer these things (as opposed to the people who voted for Brexit) I can't imagine there's many cases where they look at the EU system and think there's something fundamental they want to change.

Farming?

[Que]

Farming?

Could be relevant if it would affect food standards, be it stricter or less strict. Less strict standards would negatively influence the possibility to export the produce to the EU (as well as the well being of animals or humans, and the environment).

Stricter standards, I would be all for it. But the EU already has standards for organically produced foods. See, I can't the point there either.

The problem with more environmental and and animal friendly farming, which I would be strongly in favour of, are not the food standards but is competition. These so needed changes will mostly lead to higher prices. And this is why these changes need to be implemented in a market that can separated from the world market. Or else farmers will be outpriced and financially destroyed by the world market. The internal market of the EU is such a market, that protects European farmers from "unfair" competition.

The UK could do the same and implement its own farming policies and shielding off its national market with import restrictions and subsidising its famers. But can it do so in reality? 

No, of course not...