For his third lie of Prime Minister’s Questions on January 5, Boris Johnson tried to prod supporters of Brexit into unfounded fears about the Labour Party.
He claimed that a future Labour government under Keir Starmer would take the UK back into the European Union.
This has never been a Labour policy.
In its 2019 general election campaign, Labour offered the nation another referendum on whether to leave the European Union – at the insistence of then-Shadow Brexit Secretary, Keir Starmer.
But Starmer dropped any suggestion that Labour would take the UK back into the EU after he was elected Labour leader.
Was the election policy a ploy to make then-leader Jeremy Corbyn unpalatable to Brexit-supporting Labour voters like those in the so-called ‘Red Wall’ seats, who voted Conservative in response to Starmer’s policy?
Was it a tactic to force Corbyn out of the party leader position, allowing Starmer and his far-right cadre to take over and turn Labour into what it is now, the Tepid Tories?
That’s none of Boris Johnson’s business, of course. He just wants to turn Starmer sour on the taste buds of the general public.
So he lied:
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Liz Truss: the queen of cheese once warned that Brexit will seriously harm the UK. Now it seems she is to be the instrument of that harm.
Sorry, everybody. I tried to take Liz Truss seriously but I couldn’t.
The woman who got upset about the amount of cheese the UK imports, and then signed a deal to export it to a country that is mostly lactose-intolerant, has been appointed as the lead negotiator on Brexit after Lord Frost quit.
Frost had been the UK’s chief Brexit negotiator but quit after the deal he negotiated proved unworkable – particularly with regard to the Northern Ireland protocol. He said Boris Johnson had only agreed to the protocol in order to “get Brexit done” and had known it could not possibly work.
Now, Truss has been handed the gargantuan task of making it work – before a hard border is set up between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
And people have been laying bets on how long it will be before she triggers Article 16.
For clarity, Article 16 of the NI Protocol says that the UK or EU may take safeguarding measures – without agreement with the other side – “if the application of the protocol leads to serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade”.
Any changes would be restricted to what is strictly necessary in order to remedy the situation. And if the UK invokes it, the EU may retaliate if its own rights and obligations are prejudiced by those changes – triggering a catastrophic cascade.
And Thicky Lizzie threatened to trigger it straight away:
Ah, how sweet. Liz’s first threat to trigger Article 16.
Apparently she thinks this is a great way to take the Prime Minister job that Boris Johnson will soon be relinquishing:
Liz Truss threatening article 16, which would result in punitive tariffs on UK exports. But Liz Truss is prepared to do any damage to UK trade, if it means she will become next PM after Johnson is pushed out. pic.twitter.com/BGL4GeCvzk
However, there are doubts as to her ability to do the job:
I just read that @trussliz ' appeared to believe that Yorkshire Tea is grown in Yorkshire' 😂😂😂😂😂😂
— Jen Wood – est optimum simpliciter (@unojen_wood) December 21, 2021
And this brings me back to the headline.
How long do you think it will be before she tries to apply a cheese-based solution to the problem?
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The Labour Party is supposed to represent workers and working-class people, especially if they are struggling for decent pay, in-work benefits and pensions, as part of its reason for existing – wouldn’t you agree?
Members of the University and College Union have been striking in a dispute that is partly over the management and financing of the University Superannuation Scheme (USS), which provides pensions to the UK’s older universities as well as research institutes and academic thinktanks, and partly over low pay and issues including insecure fixed-term contracts used to employ an increasing number of teaching staff.
So why did Labour councillors in Sheffield not only cross a picket line but, in one case, apparently assault a picketer?
The Labour Chief Whip of Sheffield City Council Tony Damms assaulting a picket.
This after some Labour crossed a picket line to discuss whether they would support the @ucu strike.
My Solidarity with Labour Councillors who stood on the Picket.
It seems a meeting of Labour-led Sheffield City Council had been scheduled to take place in a university building – during the strike, which seems extremely insensitive of a Labour-run organisation.
These councillors were attending a pre-meeting, and it seems they crossed the picket line to do so, attracting cries of “Scab!” from some of the picketers. That’s how the incident came to take place.
Sheffield UCU subsequently released a statement:
Today, a group of Labour councillors from Sheffield City Council made a decision to use a university building, walking past a group of striking Sheffield UCU members to do so. Our statement on this is below. pic.twitter.com/BhDl2lOlne
“Today, the majority of Labour councillors entered a University of Sheffield building for a pre-meeting, and in doing so, walked past striking members of Sheffield UCU. Along with UCU members from 57 other HE institutions across the UK, today is our first day of strike action in our dispute over rampant precarity, unhealthy workloads, equal pay, and substantial cuts to our pay and pensions. These are issues that we trust would be of particular importance to the Labour party.
“We do not condone the use of university buildings during strike action, and when we learned of this meeting, had worked with the Sheffield Students Union to find an alternative location in the Students Union next door, which is treated as neutral ground during industrial action.
“We are extremely disappointed that any member of the Labour party would choose to cross past striking union members, despite being given an opportunity to support our action by simply relocating their pre-meeting to a nearby building. We understand that at this pre-meeting, the Labour members took a vote and were determined to not attend the later, full council meeting. This decision does not negate their previous choice to do so, but we are pleased they made the correct choice in the end.
“We appreciate the solidarity of those Labour, Green, and Lib Dem council members who chose to not enter the building.”
Yes indeed. Apparently the alternative, Student Union, building was turned down by councillors because they thought it was too small for social distancing.
That doesn’t excuse the Labour Party from having scheduled a meeting to take place at the university during strike action, though.
What were they thinking?
And isn’t this typical of Labour Party policy at the moment – that the challenges faced by workers and working-class people are increasingly overlooked by career politicians who are more concerned with keeping their positions as members of the Establishment?
If that’s the political position occupied by Keir Starmer’s Labour, then it is worse than useless to the people for whom that party was originally formed.
Labour Exploitation Party. They climb to the heights by walking all over us.
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For clarity, Alex Taylor was playing down Germany’s role in resettling refugees. That country hasn’t just taken in one million people; it’s taken a million every year since 2013, two years before Javid’s record starts.
Just taking it from 2015, that’s seven million people, or 280 times the number the UK took in during the same period.
Javid is one massive liar, isn’t he? And in this case he was doing it for his colleague, who was apparently busy talking to European leaders. Was she lying to them? I think they’d know too!
You can start you psychopath with stopping your arming of Saudi, UAE, Israel, stop bombing countries for oil & try & see if you can get a heart transplant so you understand that it is NOT okay to let humans drown! #RefugeesWelcomehttps://t.co/YeykMTzkMK
The language is fascinating if you like psychoanalysis. Patel says she’s talking with European leaders to “prevent further tragedies” in the Channel, without actually saying what she considers to be a tragedy in this instance.
We know that she has a so-called “pushback” policy that, if she goes through with it, will force refugees out of UK waters – to drown elsewhere if their transport is as flimsy as the raft that capsized in the Channel last week.
So she doesn’t consider these people dying to be a tragedy.
She considers the bad publicity attracted to the Conservative government by them dying to be a tragedy.
That’s how it seems to This Writer.
Another analyst’s dream is the tweet quoted below, which Clare Hepworth accurately describes in her response:
“We agreed more co-ordinated action was needed”. To do what?
Patel didn’t say – and that implies that it’s not going to be pleasant for refugees/asylum-seekers. This in turn means it is unlikely to be popular with the public – so she held back the details.
But while she’s off talking with her opposite numbers in Europe – a job that would have been much quicker and easier, by the way, if her boss hadn’t ticked off Emmanuel Macron with his Twit diplomacy – she’s facing court action by the workers she expects to enforce her “pushback” policy:
The PCS union, that represents Border Force staff, has joined Care 4 Calais to demand that Patel publish the legal basis of “pushback” and details of how she expects it to be carried out.
If she refuses, then they will launch judicial review proceedings to establish whether the policy is even legal.
General Secretary Mark Serwotka said, “The ‘pushback’ policy being pursued by the Home Secretary is unlawful, unworkable and above all morally reprehensible. Our border force members are aghast at the thought they will be forced to implement such a cruel and inhumane policy.
“PCS will not rule out all forms of industrial action, including disrupting the implementation of the Pushback policy if the Home Secretary insists on going ahead.”
He also said people trying to reach the UK should be allowed to so via safe routes so that their claims can be assessed here.
And his wish may be granted before his union gets as far as court:
If I were French, I would be saying that it was a matter of sovereignty *not* to have foreign (UK) border officials operating on our soil. https://t.co/RfZjTbnp4Y
— Sasha Clarkson 💙🏴🟨🟥🇺🇳🌍☮️🕊🐰🤗 (@SashaClarkson) November 28, 2021
It seems M. Macron was the only major French politician who was still in favour of a treaty known as the Le Touquet Accords, which allows the UK to police its borders at places like the Port of Calais. This makes it easy to turn refugees back before they are able to use the ferry like everybody else.
But BoJob has upset Macron. And with a French Presidential election coming up, and other candidates like Michel Barnier (remember him?) advocating an end to Le Touquet, it seems pretty soon the refugees will have their safe route to the UK after all.
Once they get here, it won’t matter what officials say; they’ll be on UK soil and may legally claim asylum.
That would really mess up Patel’s plan.
The claim that the UK takes more refugees than any other European country is blown already.
Any claim to be trying to be humane to refugees would also be blown.
Her policy would be in tatters.
And everyone who supported her crusade against refugees would be very upset with her.
Take a look at the question below:
Why didn't Priti Patel's parents seek refuge in Kenya? 🤔
It’s based on an old Patel lie – that refugees should settle in the first safe country they can reach.
With all the elements lining up against her, Patel may end up wishing her parents had done just that.
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Sadiq Khan: the train is probably empty because no RMT driver would want to get on one with him in it.
Wasn’t this a desperately disappointing development from Sadiq Khan, just when Tube drivers need support from the London Mayor who belongs to the Party of the Workers?
Tube drivers are striking because Transport for London has ripped up existing agreements and working arrangements for the Night Tube, demanding extra night and weekend working.
RMT general secretary Mick Lynch explains: “This strike is about the ripping apart of popular and family friendly agreements that helped make the original Night Tube such a success. Instead the company want to cut costs and lump all drivers into a pool where they can be kicked from pillar to post at the behest of the management.
“We have made every effort in ACAS and direct talks since the off to resolve this dispute but it is clear that LU bosses are driven solely by the bottom line and have no interest whatsoever in the well being of their staff or the service to passengers.
“This strike action, and its serious consequences in the run up to Christmas, was avoidable if the Tube management hadn’t axed dedicated Night Tube staff and perfectly workable arrangements in order to cut staffing numbers and costs.
“We warned months ago that slashing two hundred Night Tube Train Driver positions would create a staffing nightmare and LU need to start facing up to that reality and soon. The union remains available for further talks even at this late stage.“
Contrast that with what Sadiq Khan, Labour’s London Mayor, has said about it, and you’ll understand why Unite’s Sharon Graham has tweeted what she did:
This comment is precisely why workers are turning away from @UKlabour when a Labour mayor attacks workers. It's about time the @MayorofLondon did the right thing and stood up for workers not just at election time but when it matters. https://t.co/MVHoo0PFwa
The Night Tube has an important part to play in our capital’s recovery and helps to improve safety for everyone, especially women and girls making their way home at night.
The letter to Khan states: “Our Lead Organiser for TfL wrote an email to London Underground senior managers… which ended with the words “We are happy to attend ACAS to resolve the dispute. And are available to do so.” We never received a reply to this email.
“Our reps and members have seen the email in which RMT offers to meet at ACAS and are justifiably furious at the complete misrepresentation of our position in the public domain. It is having an incendiary effect. It’s hard for us to understand why you’ve done this and all I can think is that you have been fed an inaccurate line by hawks within TfL.”
The explanation kindly suggested by Mr Lynch in the letter, even if true, wouldn’t let Khan off the hook because he should have checked the facts with the RMT Union.
It’s a terrible position for a Labour politician, in an elected position of authority, to choose. Here’s the better choice:
If you're a representative of the so-called workers' party and think the Night Tube is a good idea, here's an idea:
Instead of attacking and smearing tube drivers and their trade union over the strike, pay them much higher wages for night work, so they're incentivised to do it.
Under Starmer's dismal leadership Labour politicians, including the man himself, keep forgetting that they're supposed to be the party of the workers, not some kind of capitalism-peddling, worker-battering, corporate-approved Tory tribute act.
If Jeremy Corbyn stands as an independent at the next General Election, I don't think many people outside of the Parliamentary Labour Party will be campaigning for the official Labour candidate?
I hereby pledge that I will not vote for Starmer's Labour party and will do all I can to encourage my family and friends not to either. To reward traitors for their actions would be a terrible lesson for the younger generations. They want a war with the left-they have got it!
— Socialist Party | Liverpool Branch (@SocPtyLiverpool) November 26, 2021
There are lots of good points in those comments. Probably the most pertinent are those stating that people who want a better country – for everyone rather than just the very rich – don’t owe Labour anything now that it clearly does not have the principles on which it was founded.
Nobody is obliged to vote for Labour. It is Starmer’s – and Khan’s – responsibility to show, by example, that they are worthy of our support.
Starmer’s record since April 2020 – and Khan’s shocking performance over the Night Tube – tell us they aren’t even interested in it.
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Labour’s worst leader: Starmer keeps screwing up so This Site will keep using this image.
The Communications Workers Union (CWU) has withdrawn its support from Keir Starmer.
A special conference of the union voted to provide only its affiliation fee to the national Labour Party from now on:
CWU Special Conference has just voted to suspend donations to the national Labour Party above our affiliation fee. As a trade union we will only work with those in the Party who are interested in delivering for our members. It’s time to get back out into our communities.
The union’s general secretary, Dave Ward, said the union would focus on individual Labour members who support its own aims: “In focusing our political resources on those in Labour who are really up for delivering for our members we are looking beyond the factional war being waged by an out-of-touch Westminster politics.
“This is a positive step for our union and a real offer to those in Labour who want to change things on the ground.”
It’s another defeat for Keir Starmer, who must now take the financial hit implied by the loss of the union’s funding. Coming on top of the #LabourDataBreach this puts his further-right-wing-than-the-Tories party in financial danger.
Too bad:
The CWU has today joined Unite in reducing funding for Labour, already suffering financial stress after the departure of 100,000+ members. That's part of the price of moving right.
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Prophetic: I made this infographic in December 2020 – almost a year ago.
Remember when David Cameron – the architect of the EU membership referendum – said his Conservative-led government would ‘slash red tape’?
It’s almost funny, with hindsight.
Today we learned that the departure from the European Union that his referendum triggered has resulted in a loss of £17 billion in revenue to UK businesses, while they have been swamped in a quagmire of red tape that Brexit has created.
According to The London Economic:
Despite promises from the Leave campaign that red tape would fade after Britain quit the EU, UK companies have had to fill in an astonishing 48 million customs declarations and 140,000 export health certificates in the eight months since the UK quit the single market and customs union , according to the National Audit Office (NAO).
The NAO blamed Brexit for a sharp decline in trade between the UK and EU this year. “Total trade in goods between the UK and EU was 15 per cent (£17bn) less in Quarter 2 when compared with the equivalent quarter in 2018,” the watchdog’s report said.
An additional £600 million in costs has hit British importers since January according to HMRC data seen by The Guardian. The cause has been identified as Brexit, because the taxes were not required for EU imports when the Britain was in the single market.
But isn’t that the exact opposite of what Boris Johnson promised? Didn’t he say there would be no barriers to trade after Brexit?
Why, yes – yes he did:
Today we learn Brexit red tape has slashed £17 billion from UK trade with the EU in just three months as businesses struggle to keep up with new costs
Here is Boris Johnson selling his “oven ready” deal on the absolute promise there would be NO non-tariff barriers to trade! https://t.co/d9wVWHlZRF
It turned out that these rules and regulations were necessary to keep us safe and secure in our workplaces and financial transactions. I’m sure you can think of your own examples.
Their loss has endangered us.
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Lord Frost: he has turned his back on ‘Building Back Better’ and he isn’t ‘Getting On’ with anything – particularly the EU and Northern Ireland.
Both the UK and EU are putting forward ideas to change the Northern Ireland Protocol that aims to prevent a hard border being set up between the province and the Republic of Ireland. The problem is obvious: they don’t agree.
Worse still is the admission by Brexit Secretary Lord Frost that the UK only signed up to the protocol, back in 2019, because Boris Johnson was in a hurry to “Get Brexit Done”.
Johnson has only ever seen Brexit as an electoral tool – to fool voters into electing a Conservative government. He never really supported its agreements.
Let’s remind ourselves of what Johnson said about the deal in 2019, and what he has said about it since:
As Boris Johnson prepares to break his own Brexit deal, the one he agreed, signed & sold to the public & Parliament as a negotiating triumph less than a year ago, every UK News Channel should be playing this compilation. But just in case they don’t you know what to do.. pic.twitter.com/MaSjnjr972
So it was a “great new deal”, but only up to the point at which it was implemented, after which it was a barrier to trade. A barrier that Johnson and Frost created!
Frost has now turned on the deal that he himself, personally, negotiated, saying that it is no good. It seems the whole world has responded with incredulity at the sheer cheek of this man, many agreeing with Neale Richmond’s analysis of him, below:
Frost reckons the NI Protocol is unworkable and blames the EU for imposing rules that restrict the flow of UK goods across the artificial border that Johnson put in the middle of the Irish Sea after lying that he’d do no such thing.
He has devised an entirely new protocol that strips the European Court of Justice of its governance role and proposes international arbitration of the way provisions in the protocol are implemented.
But the EU has said it would be very hard to see the Protocol surviving without ECJ oversight and was set, today, to propose its own changes:
The proposals are understood to include a unique deal around agri-food – which includes agriculture, horticulture, and food and drink processing – aimed at sharply reducing the checks on products moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
There will also be an arrangement to allow the continued sale of chilled meats from Great Britain in Northern Ireland; these products were facing a ban.
Clearly there are huge differences between the two sides and these are likely to lead to weeks of negotiation, with the future of peace in Northern Ireland – as provided under the Good Friday Agreement that many signatories have already abandoned – in the balance.
For Johnson and his government, the damage has already been done. Their contradictory behaviour has been universally condemned by opponents and former allies alike, both within and outside the Conservative Party:
They signed the NI protocol to postpone the admission that Brexit is damaging & daft. And they’re trying to renege on the NI protocol to postpone the admission that Brexit is damaging & daft. No matter that trust is a moderately important diplomatic currency…
I don't say this lightly. But UK's destructive downward spiral is only accelerating. Johnson Government is consciously endangering peace process in my NI homeland. I hope EU, US & Ireland's many other friends fully grasp seriousness of threat & recalibrate behaviour accordingly.
The absolute state of David Frost trashing the deal he negotiated + hailed as a triumph – despite many, yours truly included, warning it was a dud – *and worse* now using it to further undermine our relationship with some of our closest friends in an increasingly dangerous world https://t.co/tuswxzh8Sn
Clearly there was no good faith and the plan was always to cause trouble in Northern Ireland and to rip up the agreement later.
And what about Bernard Jenkin’s appearance on the BBC’s Newsnight?
Bernard Jenkin on Newsnight last night admitted that the Northern Ireland Protocol is a badly negotiated agreement that was only acceptable at the time to get Brexit done because Britain was in a weak position viz the EU. What? I thought we held all the cards!
— Richard Thompson #FBPE #facciamorete #FBPPR (@RichardPTh) October 12, 2021
Bernard Jenkin #Newsnight “Brexit Deal was signed at a time when Gov was weak & gripped by a constitutional crisis, the EU took advantage”
EU trade agreement was signed *year* after his party won a maj 80 seats in election to *get Brexit done* Shamelesspic.twitter.com/czfAkqpZ9B
Notice the faux pas at the end when he said, “We tried to make it worse – work.”
But Jenkin wasn’t convincing. Too many of us have had our eyes opened to the harm these lying clowns have caused, and we’re not going to believe any more.
Some of us have been proved to have been right all along:
Those who predicted austerity would do irreparable harm to this country's social fabric have been vindicated;
Those who voted Remain in 2016 EU referendum have been vindicated;
Those who predicted a UK public health disaster because of lack of preparedness are vindicated…
— Professor Christopher Painter (@PrfChrisPainter) October 12, 2021
We are realising what Johnson has been able to do, simply by lying repeatedly to us – not only about Brexit but about everything else he was planning to do:
We're being mugged in broad daylight 1) our loved ones dying 2) our pensions stolen 3) our NHS privatised 3) our children unprotected 4) Our elderly & vulnerable abandoned 5) The UK diminished & traduced in every way possible How much longer do we sit back & accept this?
Since waking and putting on #r4today I’ve heard that Frost is about to tear up his own Brexit agreement, Sunak has no money left and Johnson has presided over the worst public health disaster in UK history…
The trouble now is those tribal members of the public who simply won’t accept the evidence that is now in front of them.
I'm running out of steam. The evidence is there that Johnson failed in his handling of the pandemic, yet people still say he did his best. The evidence that Brexit is a disaster is clear, yet people are still supportive of it. What will it take? It's demoralising and exhausting.
And some will carry on supporting it, even when their own standard of living plummets.
All we can hope – those of us who seriously want a better future for our bitterly divided and misled island nation – is that enough people have realised the depth of Johnson’s – and Frost’s – betrayal to make a difference before it is too late for us all.
But the clock is ticking…
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BFAWU president Ian Hodson: the union has disaffiliated from Labour – the party it helped create – after Starmer’s rabble threatened to expel him over a connection with a proscribed organisation.
One of the trade unions that founded the Labour Party has disaffiliated from it – in disgust at Keir Starmer’s insistence on waging a “factional internal war” instead of opposing Boris Johnson’s far-right government.
The Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) had said it would hold a vote on disaffiliation after Labour threatened to expel its national president, Ian Hodson, over connections with one of the organisations that Starmer’s Labour recently proscribed for no very good reason.
Hodson had dealings with Labour Against the Witchhunt – a support organisation for party members falsely accused of anti-Semitism by Keir Starmer’s auto-guilting disciplinary machine – until 2017.
It was proscribed by Starmer’s perversion of the party earlier this year, making any action against Hodson retrospective – and therefore unreasonable.
The union had planned a disaffiliation vote to coincide with Starmer’s speech at the Labour conference in Brighton this week – but the announcement was made the day before, heaping humiliation on the party’s non-leader.
He is the only Labour leader ever to drive away one of the organisations that helped found the party.
In a statement, the union made its reasoning clear [boldings mine]:
“We need footballers to campaign to ensure our schoolchildren get a hot meal. Workers in our sector, who keep the nation fed, are relying on charity and good will from family and friends to put food on their tables. They rely on help to feed their families, with 7.5% relying on food banks, according to our recent survey.
“But instead of concentrating on these issues we have a factional internal war led by the leadership. We have a real crisis in the country and instead of leadership, the party’s leader chooses to divide the trade unions and the membership by proposing changes to the way elections for his successor will take place.
“We don’t see that as a political party with any expectations of winning an election. It’s just the leader trying to secure the right wing faction’s chosen successor.
“The decision taken by our delegates doesn’t mean we are leaving the political scene; it means we will become more political and we will ensure our members’ political voice is heard as we did when we started the campaign for £10 per hour in 2014.
“Today we want to see £15 per hour for all workers, the abolition of zero hours contracts and ending discrimination of young people by dispensing with youth rates.
“The BFAWU will not be bullied by bosses or politicians. When you pick on one of us you take on all of us. That’s what solidarity means.”
In the light of this announcement, Keir Starmer should be dreading the moment when he takes the stage for his speech.
He was probably hoping for applause – but now he’ll be lucky to avoid catcalls. Personally, This Writer would pelt him with rotten vegetables.
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Empty shelves: Boris Johnson created the shortages with his stupid Brexit – as this satirical image makes clear. Now he’s scrambling to find short-term solutions because he’s upset that the backlash is harming his popularity.
Boris Johnson’s idiocy has painted him into a corner so tight that his only choices make him look even more blindingly daft.
His Brexit stopped EU haulage drivers from working in the United Kingdom and this led to a worsening of the shortage the country was already facing.
Johnson refused to put HGV drivers on the list of those who would be allowed to work in the UK, saying that the country (in fact, only a quarter of current UK citizens) had voted to end freedom of movement.
How true those words became!
Now we have no freedom to move groceries…
No freedom to move other goods…
And because fuel tankers aren’t reaching filling stations, no freedom to move at all. On this, Johnson’s Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, tried to assure motorists that there was no crisis – and they ignored him, sparking mass-hysteria panic-buying.
This response from the public indicates that the population at large has no confidence in government claims.
That’s what happens when a prime minister lies constantly – and leads a government of liars.
Now, Johnson is planning a U-turn, saying he will put EU drivers on the visa scheme allowing them to work in the UK.
So he is making a liar of himself – again.
And he is saying the scheme will be restricted to 5,000 drivers – nothing near the 100,000 who are needed.
If he’s saying this will be enough, he’s making a double liar of himself.
That’s according to haulage bosses:
Toby Ovens, managing director of Broughton Transport Solutions, said he is not convinced a temporary visa scheme will solve the current shortage of HGV drivers.
This is just another Tory bid to hoodwink us.
Johnson is saying what he thinks will calm us down: “All is well. We are solving the problem. Go home. Go back to sleep.” That sort of thing.
He’s just looking for short-term relief from the pressure this situation has created – not on the UK’s transport infrastructure, but on him.
He doesn’t like the fact that people are – rightly – blaming him for a crisis that would not have happened if he had not insisted on forcing on us all a Brexit deal that he had not even read.
And This Writer doesn’t think for a moment that it will do him any good.
Because we know we can’t trust him and his promises are worthless.
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