International Brexit Discussions v11: U.K and Switzerland sign post-Brexit financial services deal

[Arkain2K]

Brexit Britain Burned Bridges With Eastern European Truckers. Now It Wants Them Back
By Konrad Krasuski and Veronika Gulyas| September 27, 2021


​

The U.K. wants to issue visas for truckers to ease a shortage that’s led to gasoline stations running dry and hit food supply chains. The hard part could be persuading drivers from eastern Europe, the biggest pool of labor in recent years, to come back.

Stung by months of changing rules because of Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic, those in Poland and Hungary interviewed on Monday said they aren’t ready to help unless they’re offered a long-term plan to work in the country and more pay. Echoing comments from Germany, Britain was now having to learn the consequences of Brexit, they said.

“There’s much distrust now against working in the U.K., given that the country is giving ad-hoc answers to its imminent problems,” said Tivadar Arvay, spokesman for the Hungarian Road Transport Association, which has about 2,500 members. The concern is that drivers would be “left in the lurch” after their visa expires. “They shouldn’t fall for this,” he said.

Lukasz Krzeminski, owner of Polish logistics firm TF Krzeminscy, said a longer-term solution would also have to be accompanied by more money.

​

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is ready to bring in army drivers if needed as the crisis escalates across the country, with scenes of panic buying at gasoline stations at the weekend. The labor shortage, which was exacerbated by Brexit and then the pandemic, has raised the prospect of disruption to food and fuel deliveries for weeks to come.

The U.K. opened its doors to workers from eastern Europe when the former communist states joined the European Union in 2004. Brexit campaigners, spearheaded by Johnson, said leaving the EU would allow the country to take back control of its borders.

Yet after insisting that haulage companies should train drivers and pay them more, the government made a u-turn over the weekend. Some 5,000 foreign drivers will be offered a 12-week visa until Christmas, a move businesses called woefully inadequate.

“Polish truck drivers and logistics companies want to do business, but they need some stable rules for longer than three months,” said Jan Buczek, head of Poland’s Association of International Road Transport Carriers.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ns-bridges-with-eu-truckers-it-now-wants-back

-----

First if all, why the f would any modern country have a shortage of truck drivers in their logistics chain?! Is this because there aren't enough Brits with drivers license on the road, or because greedy British logistics companies don't want to hire British drivers for the job because they would have to pay them more than Eastern European drivers?

 

[Fanu]

nothing else left to do but laugh at all the self imposed problems britain is now facing
british politicians are trash, so I don't expect things to get any better any time soon for brits - my condolences for brits who voted remain

 

[Billy no mates]

Brexit Britain Burned Bridges With Eastern European Truckers. Now It Wants Them Back
By Konrad Krasuski and Veronika Gulyas| September 27, 2021


​

The U.K. wants to issue visas for truckers to ease a shortage that’s led to gasoline stations running dry and hit food supply chains. The hard part could be persuading drivers from eastern Europe, the biggest pool of labor in recent years, to come back.

Stung by months of changing rules because of Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic, those in Poland and Hungary interviewed on Monday said they aren’t ready to help unless they’re offered a long-term plan to work in the country and more pay. Echoing comments from Germany, Britain was now having to learn the consequences of Brexit, they said.

“There’s much distrust now against working in the U.K., given that the country is giving ad-hoc answers to its imminent problems,” said Tivadar Arvay, spokesman for the Hungarian Road Transport Association, which has about 2,500 members. The concern is that drivers would be “left in the lurch” after their visa expires. “They shouldn’t fall for this,” he said.

Lukasz Krzeminski, owner of Polish logistics firm TF Krzeminscy, said a longer-term solution would also have to be accompanied by more money.

​

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is ready to bring in army drivers if needed as the crisis escalates across the country, with scenes of panic buying at gasoline stations at the weekend. The labor shortage, which was exacerbated by Brexit and then the pandemic, has raised the prospect of disruption to food and fuel deliveries for weeks to come.

The U.K. opened its doors to workers from eastern Europe when the former communist states joined the European Union in 2004. Brexit campaigners, spearheaded by Johnson, said leaving the EU would allow the country to take back control of its borders.

Yet after insisting that haulage companies should train drivers and pay them more, the government made a u-turn over the weekend. Some 5,000 foreign drivers will be offered a 12-week visa until Christmas, a move businesses called woefully inadequate.

“Polish truck drivers and logistics companies want to do business, but they need some stable rules for longer than three months,” said Jan Buczek, head of Poland’s Association of International Road Transport Carriers.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ns-bridges-with-eu-truckers-it-now-wants-back

-----

First if all, why the f would any modern country have a shortage of truck drivers in their logistics chain?! Is this because there aren't enough Brits with drivers license on the road, or because greedy British logistics companies don't want to hire British drivers for the job because they would have to pay them more than Eastern European drivers?

The problems with haulage are long term though they've definitely been excacerbated by Brexit and Covid , haulage has been an industry in decline for a while older drivers are leaving and young drivers are just not there to take their place , the governments attempt at professionalising the industry by introducing qualification over and above having an appropriate license has seen some give up the profession as have the changes in culture at road sides stops by the police/dvsa with drivers incurring some fairly hefty fines for relatively minor infringements , so drivers were increasingly feeling that the risk benefit equation was skewed against them .
Short term issues are the back up of driving tests for new licenses caused by covid as well as the hold up in renewals caused by covid and industrial action at the licensing agency , one of my blokes had an issue at the end of July with a renewal and we got told they had not yet started opening Mays post , there is a provision to drive without a license if its being renewed and a critical workers emergency email that was supposed to elicit a response confirming (or not) a renewal within 4 hours , 3 days latter we got a generic email telling us there was a 6 to 10 week delay , we managed to sort it out but it was torturous and I can well imagine a lot of people just thought 'fuck that' and gave up on it and did something else .

 

[aries]

nothing else left to do but laugh at all the self imposed problems britain is now facing
british politicians are trash, so I don't expect things to get any better any time soon for brits - my condolences for brits who voted remain

I voted remain and I've been cursing the leavers everytime some new Post-Brexit issue crops up. The panic buying is just avoidable though. All these cunts queuing for fuel can't all be empty at the same time! I blame the remainer MP's as well, if they'd have done their job properly we wouldn't be in this mess.

 

[deise69]

First if all, why the f would any modern country have a shortage of truck drivers in their logistics chain?! Is this because there aren't enough Brits with drivers license on the road, or because greedy British logistics companies don't want to hire British drivers for the job because they would have to pay them more than Eastern European drivers?

It's a bit of both. There are not enough British drivers but it never mattered because cabotage meant EU drivers filled the gaps. Now that they can no longer work inside Britain, gaps are starting to appear. But this is only the tip of the iceberg, there's a shortage of workers across a lot of industries - chefs, waiters, abattoir workers, shop workers, farm hands, fruit pickers, vets, nurses, doctors etc and British workers are not replacing them.

Its been nearly 10 months since the UK left and they haven't even started doing customs checks on EU goods yet because they don't have the man power or the facilities. This is only the start, wait until the fuel bills start to rise over winter now that the UK is outside the energy market.

I'd say it was turkeys voting for Christmas but in this case, there will be no turkeys.

 

[Arkain2K]

The British Government Prepares To Use Army Truck Drivers To Help With Fuel Delivery Crisis
By Frank Langfitt | September 28, 2021

​

SURREY, ENGLAND — The British government is putting up to 150 army drivers on standby to operate gas tanker trucks, as the country's fuel delivery crisis continues and motorists roam greater London in search of open gas stations.

The government insists the U.K. is not facing a fuel shortage, just a shortage of drivers who can deliver it to the pump.

​

British Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said there were tentative signs that the volume of fuel in gas station storage tanks was stabilizing.

"The sooner we can all return to our normal buying habits, the sooner the situation will return to normal and we all need to play our part," Shapps told the BBC.

In greater London, however, the vast majority of service stations remained dry for yet another day. The Royal Automobile Club said it had seen a sharp increase in the number of drivers who had become stranded along the roadside because they'd run out of fuel.

​

On Monday night, drivers lined up along the A3 highway at a BP station about 25 miles southwest of the city center, hoping to fill their tanks.

"Where I've come from, up in London, it's a nightmare," said Gary Jones, who works for a home health agency. "Every station is shut, and if there is anything open, there's just queues all down the road."

Most drivers were relieved to find gas, called petrol in the U.K., including Tristan Toulman, who works as an area manager for a supermarket chain.

"I've tried six stations before this one," said Toulman as he pumped unleaded. "As of tomorrow, if I hadn't found this, I wouldn't be going to work because I drive for a living."

​

As tensions rose, there were a few reports of violence. A man at one station pulled a knife and threatened another driver who was sitting inside a car, and a brawl broke out at an Esso station.

The Petrol Retailers Association said replenished stations are being emptied within hours.

"As soon as a tanker arrives at a filling station, people on social media are advising that a tanker has arrived and then it is like bees to a honey pot," Brian Madderson, the association's chair, told the BBC. "Everyone flocks there and ... within a few hours, it is out again."

Madderson said stations were worried about limiting the amount customers can purchase at about $40 per person, for fear that drivers would then confront staff.

​

Britain has struggled with a truck driver shortage for years and is estimated to need 100,000 more. Many drivers have retired early because of tough working conditions.

The problem has worsened in the past 18 months because of disruption from the pandemic and the U.K.'s exit from the European Union. Britain's Road Haulage Association estimates 20,000 European drivers went home before Brexit in January.

Under pressure, the government says it will now offer 5,000 short-term visas for foreign truck drivers to try to begin to fill the gap. Officials have blamed the crisis on panic buying by the public, triggered by a leak from a government meeting last week in which BP reportedly said that it had just two-thirds of its normal supply at gas stations and that levels were declining quickly.

However, many in the transport industry say the government failed to address a long-term labor problem — and then made it worse by leaving the EU.

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/28/1041154775/british-uk-petrol-fuel-gas-shortage-army

 

[Billy no mates]

I voted remain and I've been cursing the leavers everytime some new Post-Brexit issue crops up. The panic buying is just avoidable though. All these cunts queuing for fuel can't all be empty at the same time! I blame the remainer MP's as well, if they'd have done their job properly we wouldn't be in this mess.

At my village petrol station I saw people who I know didn't need it queing up to fill cans with fuel , it the shitrag situation all over again caused by the same sort of shitbags .

 

[Fanu]

Maybe this accelerates EV adoption in UK? I bet EV drivers are real smug right now

 

[aries]

At my village petrol station I saw people who I know didn't need it queing up to fill cans with fuel , it the shitrag situation all over again caused by the same sort of shitbags .

I'm getting pissed off just thinking about it. There was a service station manager on the news, and he said one family turned up with 5 cars and filled them all up. Definite shitbags.

 

[Arkain2K]

----

Wow, I did not know U.K truckers don't even have rest stops to accomodate their bare necessities while on the road, like food and restrooms:

How bad are the lorry driver shortages?

The industry estimates there is a gap of 100,000 lorry drivers partly due to Covid and partly Brexit. About 25,000 HGV drivers from the EU left during 2020 and did not return, and there is a backlog of 40,000 waiting to take their HGV tests. The Road Haulage Association says the government is not taking the problem seriously enough. “The average age of a truck driver in the UK is 57, every day this problem is just getting worse as more and more retire,” said Rod McKenzie, managing director of policy and public affairs at the RHA.

What are the solutions?

The freight and logistics sector have been pleading with the government for months to introduce a temporary immigration waiver for drivers not just in Europe but across the world to help alleviate the shortage.

Logistics UK, which represents freight owners, points out that there are eight different short term work visa schemes for various sectors ranging from farming to sports and religious employees.

But the government has rejected their calls arguing that paying and training British truck drivers is the solution. Industry statistics show that there has been a shortage in the sector for a decade as drivers move to more attractive careers. Driving in the UK is seen as even less attractive than it is on the continent because of the lack of specialised facilities including toilets, showers and canteens.

Last October, the Conservative MP Karl McCartney told the transport select committee of a “proliferation of bottles that look like they’re filled with Irn-Bru but they’re not” discarded by truckers on laybys where they were forced to take their mandatory breaks because of the paucity of lorry stops.

https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/24/what-is-causing-the-uk-crisis-in-petrol-supplies
----

Upon further research, I also find out their average salary is only £15/hr, or £31,000 a year. That's barely half of what truckers are getting paid in the U.S, where the average trucker salary is over $64,000 a year , while those who are certified to transport hazardous materials like fuel actually gets paid over $76,500/year.

A paltry £15/hr to drive a hulking machine for days at a time and you can't even eat, piss, or have a decent rest? No wonder there's a chronic shortage of truck drivers in Britain for years now, and no youngins wants to take the place of the older truckers after they retires.

Even if this fuel shortage is largely due to panic-buy, even if the current drivers license test backlog due to the pandemic is sorted out, there is a very real long-term problem with the national supply chain here: Who the hell in Britain would actually want this incredibly important but also incredibly unappreciated job that comes with both shitty working conditions AND shitty pay?

 

[Crom Cruach]

It's a perfect storm for truck drivers in the UK.

Most of the issues are faced by all European countries. More people are leaving the profession than joining and administration backlogs all over because of the pandemic.

But only Britain's supply chain has collapsed where every other nation is coping. They have one thing that the other countries don't... Brexit.

UK media was captured by Rupert Murdoch a long time ago. It's constant deflection and the ordinary shlub on the street doesn't even grasp how hard Brexit is fucking him.

 

[FIMN]

Wow, I did not know U.K truckers don't even have rest stops to accomodate their bare necessities while on the road, like food and restrooms.


https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/24/what-is-causing-the-uk-crisis-in-petrol-supplies
----

Upon further research, I also find out their average salary is only £15/hr, or £31,000 a year. That's barely half of what truckers are getting paid in the U.S, where the average trucker salary is over $64,000 a year , while those who are certified to transport hazardous materials like fuel actually gets paid over $76,500/year.

A paltry £15/hr to drive a hulking machine for days at a time and you can't even eat, piss, or have a decent rest? No wonder there's a chronic shortage of truck drivers in Britain for years now, and no youngins wants to take the place of the older truckers after they retires.

Even if this fuel shortage is largely due to panic-buy, even if the current drivers license test backlog due to the pandemic is sorted out, there is a very real long-term problem with the national supply chain here: Who the hell in Britain would actually want this incredibly important but also incredibly unappreciated job that comes with both shitty working conditions AND shitty pay?

We normally get foreigners to do it from my experience.

 

[Xuh]

It's a perfect storm for truck drivers in the UK.

Most of the issues are faced by all European countries. More people are leaving the profession than joining and administration backlogs all over because of the pandemic.

But only Britain's supply chain has collapsed where every other nation is coping. They have one thing that the other countries don't... Brexit.

UK media was captured by Rupert Murdoch a long time ago. It's constant deflection and the ordinary shlub on the street doesn't even grasp how hard Brexit is fucking him.

Our supply chain hasn't 'collapsed'. Where do you live?

 

[Xuh]

Bring on the Frankenplant revolution

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58711230

Brexit paves the way for gene-edited crops

The UK government is to relax the regulation of gene-edited crops to enable commercial growing in England.
...
The changes are possible because the UK no longer has to follow European Union regulations, which are the strictest in the world...

 

[Arkain2K]

UK, France at loggerheads over post-Brexit fishing rights
September 29, 2021

​

PARIS (AP) — The United Kingdom and France are at loggerheads again over fishing rights in the English Channel, leading Paris to warn about potential retaliatory measures that could impact energy and trade.

In the latest post-Brexit dispute between the two countries, France urged the British government to allow more small French boats to fish in U.K. territorial waters. The U.K. announced Tuesday that it had approved only 12 out of 47 new license applications.

Authorities on the island of Jersey also turned down license applications Wednesday from 75 French boats to operate in its waters.

Jersey, which is only 14 miles (22 kilometers) off the French coast, is a British Crown dependency outside of the U.K. As such, it has its own powers with regard to who is allowed to fish in its territorial waters.

The license refusals prompted anger from French authorities.

“These decisions are totally unacceptable and inadmissible,” French government spokesperson Gabriel Attal said Wednesday.

France considers the restrictions as contrary to the post-Brexit agreement that the British government signed with the European Union.

French Maritime Minister Annick Girardin said France and the EU would work on potential “retaliatory measures” over the next two weeks unless the U.K. provided ways to resolve the dispute quickly.

Paris is considering measures that would involve energy and trade, as well as train connections and British students living in France, Girardin said after a meeting with fishing representatives.

She called on other European countries to show solidarity “because what France is going through today, some others will also go through it.”

Romain Davodet, a fisherman from Carteret, in Normandy, said that 37% of the licenses French applicants had requested were definitively granted. “It is not normal,” he said.

Since the U.K. left the economic orbit of the EU at the start of the year, relations between London and Paris have become increasingly frayed.

The fishing spat comes weeks after Paris was left furious by the decision of Australia to cancel an multibillion-dollar order for French submarines following a new defense pact with the U.K. and the U.S.

Months earlier, the French threatened to cut off power supplies to Jersey, which gets 95% of its electricity from France. At the time, dozens of French boats surrounded the island’s main port, St. Helier. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson even sent two Royal Navy patrol boats to Jersey.

The worry is that Jersey’s latest decision might lead to something similar occurring again.

A more detailed look at Jersey’s decision showed the island’s government granted 64 licenses of the 170 French boats which applied. Another 31 boats are receiving temporary licenses to give them more time to prove they have a track record of fishing in Jersey waters and meet Jersey’s interpretation of the U.K.-EU trade deal.

Boats not granted a license were given 30 days to get out of Jersey’s waters.

“We will continue to have an open door to further data and evidence of fishing activity, including for vessels which have already been considered, and we look forward to working collaboratively to resolve the remaining complex issues,” Jersey’s external relations minister, Ian Gorst, said.

On Tuesday, the British government also said it would also consider any further evidence supplied to support the remaining French license applications.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/uk-france-at-loggerheads-over-post-brexit-fishing-rights/

 

[Topguntrophey]

Sounds like its going well.

 

[Fanu]

russia and china must be over the moon seeing europe in this state.

 

[deise69]

<Lmaoo>

 

[Crom Cruach]

<Lmaoo>

I'll bet it was a white van too.

 

[Arkain2K]

We normally get foreigners to do it from my experience.

Well, can't really expect Britons to jump at the shitty pay with shitty work conditions that Eastern European big rig drivers were willing to take before the bureaucracy red tapes broke the camel's back.

Getting the Army to drive those tankers is such a shorterm bandaid, British logistics companies gotta up those salary rates to match the rest of the First World when they realize their cheap labor ain't coming back, THEN may be you'll have enough British drivers again.