I leave the country for a few days and return to chaos. I’ll think carefully before I go away again. We are running out of gas, there is panic buying of fuel and some of this results from not having enough lorry drivers. The Remoaners have been relatively quiet for a few months, distracted as they were by the global pandemic. There has been a remarkable and almost perfect correlation between the extent to which someone is pro-remain and is also COVID orthodox. The Remoaners have been delighted with the lockdown, for example, being the kind of people who love a good crisis. Especially one whereby they can preach to the great unwashed about wearing masks, getting vaccinated and maintaining social distancing. One of these characters down our street could be heard shouting ‘two feet please; two feet’ as he walked to and from the shops.
Remoaners are out of touch with what the majority in this country wanted when it voted for Brexit. And research shows that they are also out of touch with the reality of the pandemic panic induced measures. Areas with low support for Brexit are more likely to be areas where people are happier with lockdown measures such as working from home and isolating themselves from other people, in addition to isolating themselves from reality. Of course, this is because they are largely the kind of people who can work at home—while the working classes bring things to them—and who will have access to broadband, Wi-Fi and the kinds of computers and platforms whereby they can keep in contact with their children living abroad.
But the imminent fuel and transport crisis has distracted them and diverted their attention from masked up, socially distanced ‘have you had the vaccine’ visits to Waitrose and back to their raison d’etre…Brexit. True to their love of a good crisis, the Remoaners are blaming Brexit for the current crisis, for stopping the supply of low-skilled workers to our county and for the increased red tape for lorry drivers crossing the channel. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has denied that Brexit is to blame as we are not alone in having some of these problems. Of course, there is also the matter of the ludicrous restrictions on travel that remain as a vestige of the pandemic panic. Remoaners simply smile pityingly at you if you point out that some of these measures were unnecessary and have done damage way in excess of the coronavirus. Much easier to blame Brexit.
As someone who was ardently pro Brexit, I am willing to admit that there may be a post Brexit effect on our ability to keep the supply chains moving and the gas and fuel flowing. But I am also sure that, if such an effect is genuine, then it has been prolonged and exacerbated by COVID measures. One way or another we will get round this and if the government is worried about anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine mandate protests, wait until the lights go out and the heating goes off. What better way to keep warm than a mass rally and march along Whitehall?
If Brexit has led to a shortage of the type of workers we need to keep the supply chains moving, and HGV driving is far from low skilled, then this is a perfect illustration of why we had to leave the EU and should have left it much earlier. Being in the EU meant that certain industries and occupations were stacked with people from the less opulent parts of Europe who were willing to work for low wages. Being citizens of global Europe, we neglected to train enough of our own people (working definition: born here, paying taxes here and spending most of their money in this country) and became utterly dependent on migrant labour. Maybe we will invest in our own people now and pay decent living wages to them. Nobody said leaving the EU was going to be easy, but we did say that it would be fairer and that in due course it would be better. Should we have left the EU? The answer is still yes.
Opinions from the Unity News Network (UNN) editorial team & various contributors. | UNN always clearly distinguishes between news and opinion pieces and as an open minded outlet we publish views from a variety of people and organisation that do not necessarily reflect the views of UNN or its writers. Articles published under UNN Opinions are always opinion pieces and if published on behalf of a contributor will contain that authors name at the start of the piece.
