Brexit is a disaster

Sir, – UK Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has issued a plea nay, instruction, to the UK transport industry to prioritise UK personnel when hiring HGV drivers to ease the transportation shortages evident in retail and construction industries.

He is not for loosening rules and restrictions allowing more EU drivers to re-enter the UK.

Several commentators have interviewed the EU national drivers who have left the UK due to Brexit and have not returned. Reasons given vary but they can go to other EU countries and feel welcomed.

There are reports that some transport companies are offering drivers golden hellos and increased rates but even these are not working.

Is this the Brexit benefit we were promised five years ago? Where are the sunlight fields ahead Boris and his backers in the ERG promised?

Why do we in the UK have no manufacture of staple items, like building products? It’s down to cost. For the previous 40 years, we individually and as a country collectively have been putting cost first and capability second or third.

I remember Michael Gove, asked prior to the Brexit vote what the UK would do about the farming communities with the loss of EU subsidies, advising that, for instance, the UK could buy wheat from Ukraine. This explains the thinking the UK Government was operating under, where buy not build was and may still be the order of the day.

It needs you, me and the general public to buy local and think about miles travelled by the item we are buying. Alistair Ballantyne, Birkhill,

Angus.