Quote Originally Posted by JamesWales View Post
Nope. Thousands of EU HGV workers have the right to work here anyway, so if they aren't its clearly not going to change. There is also a substantial driver shortage in Europe - what makes us think they will come here?

The British economy is realigning following Brexit. There will be good changes and bad but some disruption is inevitable.

The answer ultimately is to raise wages for British workers. Opening up our economy to an almost endless supply of workers, most of whom have far lower wages expectations than us has relatively damaged working class wages. It hasn't done so at the top, who benefit from it incidentally (probably why very generally speaking, wealthier people generally voted remain, whilst poorer people generally voted leave)

We are hopefully coming to the end of a pandemic and are in the midst of a realigning economy. We need to hold our nerve and get through it.

Practical steps I would suggest: More use of smaller delivery vans where possible, fast-track HGV driver training, campaigns to get retirees back for 1-2 years, have army on standby.

For me it's critical we stand with the workers on this one.
**** me, well said. This notion that a lot of the people who voted out in the poorest regions are uneducated racists is just plain wrong. Some will be, but the majority aren't. They voted out because successive governments and the Neo Lib EU systemically contributed towards their pay and conditions dropping. It's not the fault of economic migrants, they probably want the same as anyone else, but the fact is that bosses used labour immigration as a way of paying less and squeezing conditions.

At times, I found the remain campaign and plenty of those who were vocal about staying as snooty and condescending, and not at all interested in trying to understand that people from traditional industrial areas were the losers in almost every respect.

The irony is that the white middle class generally stick with their own, because they can and they have options. The working classes have integrated for centuries, due to economic immigration into these areas, and generally, different cultures have rubbed along pretty well.

These people voted out because governments of both colours sold off manufacturing and heavy industry, didn't replace it with real jobs, unions became weak after legislation was passed by the Tories and new labour, and the EU, run by bankers and bosses did their level best to implement policy that was designed to look after the bosses, not the workers.