CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
Worksites around the United Kingdom have been sitting empty for weeks, as the Brits learn that maybe they didn’t really think too far ahead with this whole Brexit thing.
Without any unskilled Romanian, Polish or Hungarian labourers to pour concrete and dig holes – the coldest and wettest country in Western Eurasia is learning why they joined the EU to begin with.
Post-Brexit immigration rules mean EU citizens can no longer live and work visa-free in Britain.
Booting out the poor migrants was a big selling point of Boris Johnson’s populist political BREXIT campaign, as he convinced even the most devout Labor voters in the country’s north to vote for him because he would save their jobs from these people who can’t speak English.
However, in a nation where the construction sector is generally made up of miserable underpaid jobs – even the most disenfranchised native-born Brits appear to be rather reluctant to throw their hands up to fill the void left by the deported Europeans.
Meanwhile, the British government has put soldiers on standby to help ease fuel supply problems caused by a shortage of truck drivers, amid panic buying of petrol across the country.
The UK is short as many as 100,000 truckers – or as they say ‘Lorry Drivers’ – due to the exodus of foreign workers, paired with the fact that any Brits with the experience of driving heavy rigid vehicles make up an ageing workforce of old codgers who need to be careful with social distancing.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is currently blaming the labour shortage on the virus, but as the nation’s vax rate continues to surge, this excuse is not going to last for long.
To ease this construction and labour shortage, the tories have quietly introduced a new plan to bring foreign workers back into the country to fill these jobs.
However, with the UK no longer part of the European Union, it seems foreign workers have no interest in filling out the paper work to take part in this extremely conditional and temporary visa process.
It has doesn’t help that Britain’s currency has gone to shit since they made this stupid decision to leave, with workers much more interested in taking this same kind of work in France or Germany.
Australia looks on nervously at the economic disaster that comes with the low-effort political strategy of protectionist xenophobia. However, it is very unlikely that our politicians will stop politicising borders in an effort to win votes because it’s just so damn easy with Murdoch in your corner.
