Johnson's Lorry Driver Visa Scheme Seems to be a Sham

hi my name is phil i like talking about politics and in this video i like to discuss the way the government are attempting to deal with the fuel crisis if we call it that in the short term only and also the practical application of the government's brexit u-turn on lorry driver visas how the move is too little too late but also that i strongly suspect that they understand that it is but first if you'd like to be notified of daily news and politics please subscribe to the channel and click the bell notification icon so i was told of a comment on on social media locally here about how the petrol station just up the road uh it's just a short walk away from me was rammed due to panic buying and the poster used a rude word to describe the people queuing for the fuel but this is unfair see this isn't like food you know i don't really want people panic buying food because the shelves can be empty of some items but there will be others you know this isn't like the initial panic buy-in that meant there were no toilet rolls available in the first lockdown for example you know there's toilet roll there's pet food there's all the things where the shortages there's just not the range you had um you know so if you can afford to buy extra if you can afford to stockpile you can afford to just amend your shopping list and still come out with enough fuel's a little different your car needs petrol or diesel and at most pumps that is your choice at some you may have premium petrol if you want to pay even more but it's expensive enough for even the basic petrol um and you also need a certain amount of it in order to do to go to work you know yes if you do any traveling for recreational purposes yes that can be chopped out but there's a lot of people have to travel a long distance if i was still doing the part-time teaching this year that i was last year that would be a lot of travel for me i would be worried about this i could be in real trouble you know you can't tell your car to consume less but still do the same mileage so i completely understand people wanting to make sure that their tank remains full you know perhaps the government could help by telling people who can work at home to do that again you know wouldn't just help with the pandemic but reduce the demand for fuel as well you know my partner next week because some boss in her department is a is having to drive with a load of other people from her office here over a hundred miles away to manchester for a physical meeting this was insane on so many levels with the fuel shortages or what if someone gets stranded they're going to have to make sure their tank is full to get there and back they can't rely on being able to get petrol on the way you know and and all ministers are trying to do at the moment is claim that there are no shortages that it's just down to the panic buy-in but you know there are a few problems with this uh you know one it's the same government who denied all sorts of other problems that are now undeniable like food shortages oh there's no food shortages you know so and related to both kovid and brexit are people really going to believe the government secondly an actual shortage did spark the panic buying now it may well be that the shortage was just in one little area and that's where it would have remained and it would have been over in a few days and it wouldn't have spread and and you know i'm quite happy to accept that but how can you prove that to people and then third and most importantly it really doesn't matter what's causing the shortage there is a shortage like when there was the panic buying last april last march april i think it was last april um i didn't go mad i did because you can see the thing a few people panic by then you see gaps and other people go oh well it might all be gone soon i'd better buy a load as well i didn't do that you can you can just not do that and still be fine with fuel you can't if you cannot reliably you know nip into a petrol station and get fuel that you need to travel to work of course you're going to get fuel whenever you can instead of filling up once a week of course you're going to go in every day if you can if there's fuel available in order to make sure that you're covered apart from anything else it's been rationed now anyway so you can't get your week's worth if you do a lot of traveling for it you can't get your weeks worth and what sort of idiot would drive past a petrol station where they could get fuel right now wait until they've got like quarter of a tank left then risk there not been any at all because we're now being told that the problems are going to get worse before they get better that's today's news you know perhaps the best hope is that people you know starting they start to go and fill up off-peak times um and and then it calms people down and then it sort of settles down again you know maybe like at the day pay at the pump things at night or something like that and the problem peters out i don't know i don't know how realistic that is um it was a different cause but i remember the fuel crisis 20 years ago that took a while to sort out but then we come to the brexit u-turn on lorry driver visas prompted by this latest crisis now when i discussed this yesterday wasn't it you know the news was still fresh i mean i'd actually you know recorded it on friday news was just fresh and i wondered if the government would put a cap on visas or just allow as many as we needed and if they did apply a cap if it would be enough so the next thing i know we're going to go on a bit of a journey here next look don't worry it doesn't use fuel the next thing i know i'm reading a report of a cap of 5 000 lorry drivers now don't imagine that this is uh woefully short of requirements just because we're told we're short of about 100 000 drivers you know we don't need we're sure of a hundred thousand drivers we don't need a hundred thousand drivers to stop this being an emergency you know but we can cope with shortages when we had freedom of movement there were still shortages of lorry drivers so it wouldn't necessarily be credible to compare those five thousand visas with a hundred thousand so what do we compare it to well what changed the shortage into a critical shortage with three things the first which is the brexit link which is the thing that doesn't apply in eu countries is that there seems to be about 20 000 eu lorry drivers left britain during the pandemic and have not returned and are not going to return secondly we had roughly the same number um thereabouts who were based in britain and wanted to do their test but couldn't because of the pandemic so potentially many i mean some of those may not have passed uh but potentially there's a there's a large chunk of drivers there finally we had lot but then that applies in the eu as well so we can't say that that alone would deal with it because other eu countries have that same problem finally we had lorry drivers retire or at least leave the profession for other work at the end of the day when we have brexit shortage of workers in other sectors and lorry driving doesn't pay that great you know that work can look decent for some former drivers the other thing to consider is that a lorry driver post brexit is not worth as much as a lorry driver pre-brexit this is due to cabotage being knackered the idea that you could go on a merry little roundabout around europe you know you drop a load off you pick another one up nearby you drop that off somewhere else you pick another one up nearby and you keep doing this in a big old loop until you've got back when a lorry is empty or not moving it isn't making any money it gets paid per mile and it gets paid per mile to carry something and brexit has meant a lot of british lorries being empty and not moving to a much greater degree because stuck at controls than their eu counterparts but that doesn't mean we need as many visas as the combination of brexit and covert as cost us the government just want as many drivers as is necessary to stop the situation being at crisis points you know they don't mind it being a problem they just don't want it to be on the front pages like i say you can manage with shortages there are shortages in eu countries uh but they don't have shortages of food carbon dioxide medical supplies petrol or any of the other issues will happen basically they have a shortage but not enough to see consequences in other words it's manageable so how many visas are really needed well before the announcement tesco would say just a couple of days ago in fact i think the morning of the announcement maybe that uh the the number 10 000 was being banded about and they were saying we don't think that would be enough so we currently only have half of what one major employer doesn't think is enough and when it comes to issuing these visas you may reasonably wonder how the brexiteers are taking this news after all they were dead set against it brexit was all about stopping foreign workers in britain wasn't it this is in direct contradiction to their xenophobic demands well liam fox one of the hardline brexiteers in the conservative party tried to claim that it's all right and proper that we should issue these visas and the only leaving the eu allowed us to do it actually you'll find that the only way we could get these lorry drivers in that disappeared with brexit is by having brexit he's trying to claim that the eu prevent us issuing visas as members which is another lie there are no eu rules on issuing a visas that's down to individual countries of course if you're an eu citizen you don't need a visa that's the eu rule and and that's all there is to it so and eu citizens don't need visas to work elsewhere in the eu so why would they go to the hassle of wanting a visa to come here you know there was no paperwork before now it's too much of a hassle because there's no point pretending that this policy is suddenly going to mean an extra 5 000 lorry drivers in the country next week even if that was all we needed working conditions are better in the eu they don't mess about with a load of paperwork or being treated like criminals immigration control for them there is no immigration control around the eu there's more than enough work in the eu for eu lorry drivers now i don't know if the higher wages might entice a few but the road haulage association seems to have the view that we'll be using those visas to look further afield the drivers that these visas allow us to get in won't be from the eu by and large but outside which raises another question if you need to get drivers in from say asia what's the process going to be for granting equivalents for licenses training them to manage on british roads you know you'll need to satisfy the employer and the insurer that they're not going to make a great big crash you know before they'll be allowed behind the wheel but then i saw the news that the visas are only short-term anyway and i thought well temporary yeah that's fine but for three months well surely the purpose of the visas will be to cover us while we build up this domestic workforce that the government says it wants us to have even though it's got no plans to achieve it the government hasn't even begun yes it's talked about 4 000 places on a fast-track scheme to get people trained up as htv drivers but that would go about as well as expected i mean why not deal with doctor shortages as well why don't we have a remote um weekend course oh log yourself online five hours a day a couple of days learn how to be a doctor i'll cover our doctor shortage as well might do the same thing for nurses but in terms of serious plans to deal with the driver shortages nothing the eu have been pushing reforms to make driving a more attractive career we haven't you know they've been pushing uh to improve working conditions and pay we haven't even if we had a plan which we don't we'd still need visas in place for the couple of years it would take to to see the fruits of that plan three months is laughable also it makes them worthless maybe a few eu drivers will come over uh if they find someone who's going to pay him a small fortune i can absolutely accept that they might even take the hassle with it but it's not going to be many it's not worth it for most so we need to go further afield well how is it going to be worth getting someone from say india training them up to drive on our roads dealing with all the paperwork needed to recognize their qualifications which isn't set up at the moment only to be a if you've done all that you're only allowed to use them up until christmas eve that's it oh that's not worth it is it it's not worth it for the driver it's not worth it for the employer and then consider why the visa runs out on christmas eve so the point i want to make here is that the express yesterday were painting this as johnson saving christmas didn't they publish articles saying that last year in relation to covid how did how did that go then but this move is just a pr exercise for johnson to try and save christmas that's it it's like he wants to make sure people can have their christmas he doesn't care about the actual problems he doesn't care that they're not going away so the measures end as soon as possible then it's like politically he feels and he may well be right that he can get away with anything as long as it doesn't bugger christmas up and i was wondering up until this point if the government knew that their move was not enough see there was me thinking maybe they've said this 5 000 visas thing just so that the xenophobes don't go up often it's like i'm saying oh it's only going to be for 5000 don't worry and then when the heats died down they just quietly increased the cap without any great fanfare but then i'm looking at this and thinking if it's going to end on the 24th of december you know that tells me that they understand perfectly well that it won't deal with the issue it's a scam and they know it unless of course they quietly extend the process on the 24th of december but it's very symbolic that dates i mean why not the end of the year that to me says well after christmas the demand for lori drivers is naturally lower anyway trade is naturally lower um and i just want this as a pr exercise to save christmas that's it but those are my thoughts let me know yours in the comments below i hope you found the video interesting if you did don't forget to click the like button if you'd like to support the channel further please also click the patreon link for details and until next time i'll see you later

Channel: A Different Bias

Views: 99,693

Rating: 4.9632411 out of 5

Keywords: uk petrol shortage 2021, brexit petrol shortage, brexit shortages, brexit lorry driver shortage, brexit lorry shortage, brexit news, brexit latest, brexit explained, brexit christmas, boris johnson, brexit deal, united kingdom, uk news, uk politics, a different bias

Id: Q9O2LSSfyO8

Length: 13min 53sec (833 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 26 2021

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[u/brexitfirst]

Summary:

'As the petrol crisis worsens, due to a brexit shortage of lorry drivers and subsequent panic buying, Boris Johnson announced that he will, after months of inaction, allow some visas for foreign lorry drivers. But not only is this capped at an inadequate five thousand drivers, but it only lasts for three months. This just seems to be a cynical ploy to pretend he is saving Christmas.'

[u/PrinterJ]

What do you expect from the lying cunt?

[u/barryvm]

What did people expect? He's stuck. He can't afford to acknowledge the problem is his hard Brexit so he can't solve it. He can't even blame it on the implementation of Brexit because he struck those deals. Hence, he can't structurally solve this by restoring freedom of movement, firstly because it would be too late to mitigate the short term effects and secondly because it would open him up to attack from his own radical anti-EU MP's who would spin this as a betrayal of Brexit. At the same time, he can't do nothing, because he is prime minister.

So the solution is to do what he always does: a glorified P.R. exercise. Announce insufficient measures that can be revoked the moment they generate the wrong tabloid headlines and don't really solve the problem but could potentially be spun as such. Looking busy with plausible deniability if it proves to be unpopular. Optics and campaigning as a substitute for leadership and competent management.

[u/birchhead]

3 month visa for 5000 drivers! Be lucky to get 500 drivers signing up for this!!!

[u/marshalist]

In fairness to BoJo its a more substantial effort to solve a problem than normal.

[u/off_me_head_pal]

i also wear my jumpers to the extreme right