Boris Johnson' Brexit is gradually grinding Britain to a halt. It was apparent in Northern Ireland, where the deal that Johnson proposed to the EU, as an alternative previously put forward by Theresa May, was so flawed that its contradictions became apparent within days of Britain's official withdrawal. The deal that Johnson originally proclaimed was a wonderful deal, he was soon describing as unworkable, and indeed, having signed the Northern Ireland Protocol into international law, Johnson's government turned Britain in a rogue state, by almost immediately reneging on it, and breaking international law. Its got worse since then.
Britain has never fulfilled its obligations under international law in respect of the Northern Ireland Protocol. It almost certainly never had any intention of doing so, because from Day 1, Johnson promised people in Northern Ireland that its provisions requiring the checking of goods between Britain and Northern Ireland was not required, and would not be undertaken. But, that is precisely what his "wonderful deal" did entail, and did require. It was in that that his deal differed with the deal arrived at by Theresa May, i.e. it did what she had said no British Prime Minister could agree to, which was to put the border down the Irish Sea, rather than have that border on the island of Ireland.
The Brexiters and Lexiters always lied from the start in what they promised people they could have, i.e. all the benefits of the EU Single Market and Customs Union, but with none of the costs or obligations. As soon as reality bit, that lie was exposed. In Northern Ireland it was exposed as soon as the checking of goods going from Britain into Northern Ireland did indeed have to be checked to ensure that they comply with EU standards and regulations. Because Britain had failed to put in place any of the infrastructure for doing such checks, they could not be undertaken, and so the movement of those goods to Northern Ireland stopped, and the emptying of shelves began, a process that is now starting to materialise in mainland Britain itself.
The answer in Northern Ireland is fairly easy. Businesses, there need only move their supply chains, obtaining the goods they require from the Republic rather than Britain. Its an inevitable further step towards the reunification of Ireland, and shows just how irrational the current division of the island is. Britain has only avoided that situation getting even worse, by unilaterally reneging on the Protocol. They are lucky that the EU, trying to be a good neighbour, has not continued with the legal action against Britain it is entitled to take in response to Britain breach of international law. The current situation comes to a head again at the end of this month, but its clear that Britain intends to continue to flout its obligations.
The EU has played it softly, because they know that if they took action against Britain, as they are more than entitled to do, the UK government and the UK right-wing gutter press, would try to make the EU out to be punishing Britain for having left the EU. Nothing could be further from the truth. They would simply be asking Johnson to fulfil the obligations of his "wonderful deal", that within weeks, he had reneged upon. The EU has other reasons. The large majority of people in Northern Ireland voted to Remain in the EU. Only a majority of Unionists voted to Leave, but even amongst Unionists the disaster that is Brexit has become clear, and the DUP, which was the main backer of Brexit in Northern Ireland, has seen its support drop dramatically.
As the saying goes if your enemy is making mistakes, its a good idea to let them continue to do so. The Brexit disaster in Northern Ireland is seen by its population as being the fault entirely of Boris Johnson, with the EU bending over backwards to be reasonable, in allowing Britain further rope to hang itself with. In the next few years, a Border Poll is likely, and the EU will want to continue to have the support of the people of Northern Ireland, as that approaches. Even so, the EU is likely to put pressure on Britain for having broken international law, by other means. For example, it might impose sanctions on British goods and services going to the EU, and it could demand that Britain comply with its obligations before the EU enters into any further deals with it, for example over financial services.
But, a similar thing applies to goods coming into Britain itself. As Brexit has caused a multiplication of costs and frictions on the movement of goods across Britain's borders, causing any number of bottlenecks and breaks of the supply chain, so Britain has found itself running short of a range of products, or at least their delivery being delayed and disrupted, hitting British businesses that rely on them. Its one reason a number of businesses have decided to give up on Britain and shift their operations into EU countries. To ameliorate the problems caused by that, Britain has continually delayed in implementing the border checks on goods being imported into the country. As a result, no one really knows where those imported goods meet minimum standards even of the UK, let alone those of the EU, and that means that when it comes to all of the paperwork required for country of origin statements, this is just building up problems for the future in terms of goods being re-exported.
Already, a farm in Britain has reported a case of Mad Cow Disease, the first since the epidemic of the 1990's that saw British livestock exports, and meat exports decimated. The truth is that Britain simply does not have the Border Control staff, or infrastructure to undertake the required checks without causing huge backlogs at the ports, which would rapidly bring the country to a grinding halt. So, in order to try to avoid the reality of the catastrophe that is Brexit imposing itself even more immediately, Britain has to continue to leave its borders open to all sorts of goods pouring into it unchecked. So much for taking back control, and controlling its borders!
Yet, even with that, the supplies of a range of goods have been disrupted, and the scale of that will become more apparent as we move into Winter, and a much greater reliance is placed on imported food. That is even more the case, because the other impact of Brexit is that EU workers went home, and none of them can have any reason to come back. British agricultural producers report having to leave large amounts of crops in the ground to rot, because they do not have the workers to harvest them. Similarly, all of the workers that then worked in food processing plants have gone home, leaving labour shortages there too. This is a similar catastrophe to that seen in the fishing industry, which has been crucified as a result of all of the costs from administration and paperwork required now that Britain is outside the EU. Their costs of exporting to the EU, their largest market have soared, and those markets have largely disappeared, but they too ae facing labour shortages in the attendant processing plants.
As Winter approaches, this gradual build-up of frictions, backlogs, breaks in supply chains and so on would inevitably become even more apparent, with supermarket shelves becoming even more empty than they have been in recent weeks. Many of those supply chains have themselves been ripped up, as some suppliers find the bureaucracy involved in selling into Britain just not worth the bother. Another aspect of those backlogs and disruptions is what has happened in relation to the actual transports of goods by lorry.
A lot of that transport occurs by EU lorry drivers bringing goods from the EU into Britain, across the Channel. For more perishable goods that route is far more dominant than the transport of goods via container ship, which tends to be a more effective route for durable goods. But, again, the bureaucracy involved in driving from the EU to Britain, even with the lack of border checks still taking place in Britain, means that many EU haulage firms have given up on that trade. That places an even greater burden on UK haulage firms to fill that gap, but that comes at a time when Brexit has also caused a huge shortage of UK lorry drivers too. Around 14,000 EU lorry drivers that had been working in the UK, went home, and the governments plea for them to return is likely to fall on deaf ears.
The fact that just months into Brexit, Johnson's government has had to go cap in hand to the EU to try to get its drivers to bail it out of its current self-inflicted predicament, again shows just how idiotic Brexit was, and just what lies were told by those that proposed it. The government is now even turning on its own natural supporters in business, and blaming them for the catastrophe that its Brexit nightmare has inflicted. As the horror of Brexit manifests itself more each day, the government and those that backed it, in the gutter press, seek to blame anyone for the disaster other than themselves. Yet, everything that is materialising was foretold by those of us that opposed the lies of the Brexiteers, including the lies they told in relation to the Northern Ireland border.
The latest manifestation of this unfolding catastrophe is he shortage of fuel at petrol stations due to that same shortage of tanker drivers. The government blames "panic buying", but its inevitable that people will try to ensure that they do not run out of petrol, when it becomes clear that the shortage of drivers meant that some petrol stations were closing - an announcement made well before any panic buying started - and any sensible government would have seen that situation developing months ago, and prepared for it. Some of the proposals being put forward against such "panic buying" are idiotic. For example some service stations are limiting the amount of petrol that drivers can buy, but all that means is that those drivers will have to fill up several times, and it takes no longer to queue to fill your tank, than it does to only half fill it. It simply means even longer queues, and people wasting more time and petrol sitting in queues, because of needing to fill up several times instead of once!
The problem is not the result of panic buying, but of a shortage of drivers, which led to a shortage of petrol at petrol stations, and that is not going to change until that basic problem is resolved, which is not going to happen for many months or even years to come. Britain made its hostility to EU citizens clear when it engaged in Brexit, and then made it clear that it really did not want those EU workers here as it stated its opposition to the idea of free movement. That unleashed a carnival of reaction in Britain against all foreign workers, and even against non-white British citizens. It meant that yet another "hostile environment" was created, similar to that which saw the shame of the approach to the Windrush Generation. No wonder EU workers decided to return to the much more civilised and welcoming environment of the EU, and even more did so, when the government imposed lockouts made life even more intolerable.
For the government now to want to get 5,000 EU lorry drivers to come to Britain to get it out of its self-imposed Brexit disaster is ironic, but at the same time grotesque. That it is doing so, not by inviting them to come here to save its bacon on the basis of offering them the same right as UK workers, or other EU workers settled in Britain, but only on the basis of a three month Visa, after which they would be unceremoniously dumped is sickening. Even if 5,000 additional drivers would rescue the government from the catastrophe it has caused by Brexit, it is unlikely to get anything like that number on the current basis, and who could blame them?
But, lorry drivers, of which thee is now a shortage of 100,000 is just the tip of the iceberg, because there are tens of thousands of workers required in other industries, where similar shortages exist. It means that businesses cannot function; there costs have soared, and they risk losing business to EU based firms that have avoided the calamity of Brexit.
But, of course, things could have been worse. Boris had said that he was prepared for a No Deal Brexit. Imagine how much worse, and how quickly that horrendous eventuality would have been! Its why, of course, Boris knew he could never implement such a threat, a fact that the EU knew too, and so could treat his threat as the silly empty gesturing it was. But, all that Boris's Brexit has done is to draw out that calamity, not avoid it. This is just the foothills of the developing volcano, whose building tensions will spill out in an eruption. The EU is giving Johnson rope to hang himself with in Ireland, Johnson is already running to them cap in hand to rescue him from the building catastrophe in Britain itself. They may do so, but there will be an inevitable price to pay. Johnson if his history is a guide will agree to pay it, and then break his promise once more. Then expect the eruption.
Of course, as Britain faces multiple crises, a decent, principled, or even just competent opposition would have been ripping the Tories to shreds over the last couple of years. Instead Starmer's conservative Labour Party acted as Johnson's wing man. Starmer went from the world's greatest Europhile under Corbyn, to becoming Britain's greatest Brexiteer. All along the line from Brexit nationalism to Covid, Starmer has simply acted as Johnson's co-pilot, only egging him on to even greater absurdities. Labour should have been at least 20 points ahead of the Tories in the polls, by now, but instead, no once can now tell any difference between Starmer's conservative Labour Party, and Johnson's reactionary Tory Party. Starmer sees the members of his own party as a greater enemy than he does Johnson, hence his expulsion of Corbyn, and of thousands of party members even just for having the nerve to demand to discuss that expulsion!
Its time for members to take the party back from this unprincipled, undemocratic, anti-socialist leadership. With the changes in electing the Leader pushed through by Starmer, its clear that the starting point must now be for members to build that opposition from the bottom. In truth, a system that enabled a Leader like Corbyn to be elected, who was going to be undermined by a majority of the PLP was always untenable, but the answer to that is not to acquiesce in the undemocratic power of a parliamentary elite, but to change the nature of the PLP. Its necessary to do what should have been done in 2015. We need to get rid of 90% of the current PLP; we need mandatory reselection, and even before that, members should start deselecting existing right-wing and soft left MP's using the current rules. We need also to get shut of all of the careerist base for those MP's in Local Government. The starting point should be to build fighting ward and constituency parties, turned outwards to local strikes and struggles, and electing local councillors who will act like trades union shops stewards, organising those struggles, and acting as their public voice.
As Britain grinds to a halt under the impact of Brexit, Labour needs to give workers an alternative, a socialist and internationalist alternative. Starmer and he leadership of a conservative, nationalist Labour Party are not going to provide it. We have to begin to build that alternative leadership now.
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