Indeed and in a twist of fate not being in the EU allows a greater amount buying flexibility.
UK Government Performance 2019-2024
- Thread starter Dirk Diggler
- Start date
Indeed and in a twist of fate not being in the EU allows a greater amount buying flexibility.
That's simply untrue. There are no countries having comparable issues.
There are examples of countries with minor shortages of labour in certain sectors, just as there always has been; but those shortages are utterly minute in comparison to the various crisis' we are experiencing right now, and they haven't had any noticeable impact on their populations, thanks primarily to the countries in question having friction free access to the single market, continued free movement of labour and robust supply chains.
The same goes for the non-labour related shortages we're also experiencing; they're either a knock on effect of the HGV driver and other labour shortages, or are largely the result of the border friction we introduced when we chose to leave the cross-border regulatory framework that we spent the last 30 years developing, primarily in order to reduce costs to the consumer and to prevent problems like these from ever occurring.
Surely it's telling that Northern Ireland isn't experiencing any of the issues that the rest of the UK is?
https://www.thenational.scot/news/1...saved-crippling-co2-shortage-brexit-protocol/
Just a few examples:
No one else is experience water treatment chemical shortages, that have caused their government to relax sewage dumping rules, with the end result being that certain councils have had to ask their residents to boil their drinking water:
https://www.cips.org/supply-managem...rules-eased-due-to-chemicals-supply-failures/
No one else is having to cull 120,000 pigs due to a sudden lack of abattoir workers:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/oct/01/uk-pig-industry-warns-butcher-shortage-mass-cull
No one else is having to leave crops to rot in fields:
https://www.theguardian.com/busines...le-uk-farm-sector-worried-by-labour-shortages
The list goes on and on; even issues that weren't directly caused by our government's disastrous handling of Brexit, like the recent energy crisis, have been hugely exacerbated by it; causing us to see significantly worse impacts and price rises than any other countries as a result of no longer being part of the EU's internal energy market.
I understand that it can be tempting to stick our heads in the sand, parrot the government's latest soundbite and say "Oh other countries are struggling too", but they're really not in any comparable way whatsoever.
What we're witnessing at the moment is the entirely predictable result of erecting huge barriers to trade with our largest neighbour, disrupting our own supply chains, and cutting off access to labour that our current standards of living and our developed economy requires.
None of these issues are even remotely surprising, they've been entirely expected. Our own government's Operation Yellowhammer report pointed out all of these problems long before they actually happened:
https://assets.publishing.service.g...est_Yellowhammer_Planning_assumptions_CDL.pdf
Of course our government went on to dismiss the findings of the very report that they themselves commissioned as "fear-mongering"; but then that's to be expected from what's become a radical and extreme, ideologically driven cult.
Any country that chooses willingly to self-impose the equivalent of economic sanctions upon itself, has to expect it to hurt.
Last edited:
Caporegime
Precisely. We do have some shortages here: the parts needed for our robot lawnmower have a 9 month wait on them (fortunately we got the last one they had in stock!), the new windows for our house that were supposed to be fitted in late August/early September haven't arrived in time for the cold weather to start. Graphics cards and CPUs are expensive and unobtainable here as anywhere else.
But we don't have shortages at the fuel pumps, or empty supermarket shelves. The German agricultural sector isn't killing animals because they can't be slaughtered for food, and crops got picked as usual.
One of these things isn't like the other.
Associate
Nope, no shortages here either (Netherlands) from what I can see. Plenty of fuel (horrific prices mind) and the supermarkets are full.
Soldato
- Joined
- 23 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 11,602
Rotterdam seems to be the favoured port for the container ships that cannot unload at Felixstowe due to driver shortages.
Soldato
- Joined
- 25 Nov 2005
- Posts
- 9,200
It should be pretty obvious by now this government cannot be trusted, from their cronyism in handing out contracts like candy to their friends to their lies in order to win an election
It's pretty damning when other world leaders are now calling out our government as untrustworthy
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58898117
It's also pretty shocking how brazenly open about their deceit this government is, they don't care about any repercussions because they know the population don't care enough to see anything be done about it and the opposition are too weak to mount any kind of offense against it either, politics in the UK is a joke right now, easily at the worst it has ever been
Don
It's not just us.
https://news.yahoo.com/im-california-dock-worker-facing-132925803.html
Edit:
It's biting in the rest of Europe as well:
https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads...er-ships-queue-channel-european-ports-1240039
https://news.yahoo.com/im-california-dock-worker-facing-132925803.html
Edit:
It's biting in the rest of Europe as well:
https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads...er-ships-queue-channel-european-ports-1240039
Last edited:
Caporegime
I think we already covered this:
These apples to oranges comparisons of global supply chain issues to the
Soldato
I never said every country is having exactly the same issues as the UK, I said all countries were having supply issues, of which you cannot dispute, doesn't matter if its GPU's, food, fuel, electricity, hgv drivers or even carrier pigeons, its still a supply issue, bought on almost entirely because of the GLOBAL pandemic that has affected the entire planet!
Don
I did read that 1 in 6 people in the UK couldn't find food in the Daily Mail, must be true!
Caporegime
Right, but the fact that the UK uniquely has shortages in supermarkets and petrol stations, as well as the host of other issues, is almost entirely down to Brexit.
Actually, that almost entirely is untrue: it's down to Brexit and a decade of Tory incompetence.
Soldato
There we go fixed it for you.
What do you think that your amendment proves?
Caporegime
Well it depends on what you want the reason for. If you want to know why the UK is suffering fuel and supermarket shortages (among other things), well that's primarily the pandemic, along with Brexit and a decade of Tory incompetence. If you want to know why the UK uniquely among European nations is suffering those shortages then it's down to Brexit and a decade of Tory incompetence. To me, the second question is the more interesting: throughout history countries face external threats that buffet them, throw them off course, and challenge them to respond. The pandemic was inevitable, if not this particular pandemic at this particular time, then another pathogen on another day. Brexit and Tory incompetence are so bad not because they removed the ability to handle these challenges.
Soldato
Watch out, you’ll be told that it’s a fact that remaining in the EU would have prevented our earlier vaccination start (which of course is bolleaux)
Caporegime
Watch out, you’ll be told that it’s a fact that remaining in the EU would have prevented our earlier vaccination start (which of course is bolleaux)
It actually probably would have done. Not because any of the herp about the EMA approval, but because we now know that the UK's early vaccine success was achieved by AZ using EU money to provide extra doses to the UK whilst grossly breaching their commitment to the EU. I can't imagine that would have flown if the UK was still in the EU.
On the other hand, we also now know how little difference it made. Countries success through Spring wasn't driven by vaccination it was driven by non-medical control policies. The UK did brilliantly after the disaster in the early part of the year, Germany screwed the pooch by not locking down when it needed to, etc. By the time disease dynamics were vaccine-led, the rest of the EU had caught up with the UK, with some now moving ahead (and others, especially in Eastern Europe, far behind).
Soldato
The petrol shortages at the pumps were largely exacerbated by the Road Haulage association leaking a memo from BP showing difficulty in one small part of the country, a dozen or so stations.
Roll out panic on the media and panic buying at the pumps.
We have just as much / little fuel in the country now, nothing has changed. Where the **** was the issue.
***** being *****.
Roll out panic on the media and panic buying at the pumps.
We have just as much / little fuel in the country now, nothing has changed. Where the **** was the issue.
***** being *****.
What an absolute load of revisionist rubbish. Come on you're better than this.
Edit: for the avoidance of doubt, this was in response to the first paragraph.
Last edited:
Soldato
- Joined
- 23 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 11,602
I just checked the EU performance with vaccines and as of the 10th, there are loads of EU countries who have vaccinated more.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1196071/covid-19-vaccination-rate-in-europe-by-country/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1196071/covid-19-vaccination-rate-in-europe-by-country/