I thought we were meant to take back control of borders

The letter from S. Robinson (Letters

Sept 29) is quite correct in stating that “Germany, France and Spain are also suffering from a shortage of thousands of drivers”.

However, they are neither suffering the shortages being seen by many retailers here, nor long queues for petrol. The extreme Tory Brexit, leaving both the Customs Union and Single Market, which our Government has chosen, has predictably exacerbated the situation in this country.

The enormous increase in the time-consuming paperwork and checks now required when exporting to our main market, the EU, has meant that many lorries and drivers are spending a considerable proportion of their time parked and not delivering goods.

This was entirely predictable, since our choosing to become a “Third Country” meant that these delays were inevitable. Ironically, UK civil servants helped write many of the rules on trade that we are now suffering from, when we were a member of the EU.

We can be thankful that the Government has chosen to ignore World Trade Organisation rules and has failed to impose checks on goods being imported from the EU. We simply wave them through. I thought we were meant to “Take Back Control”.

Drivers from the EU now have to have a visa to operate in the UK, involving time and expense, whereas before we left, crossing into the UK involved little more than crossing the border from Leicestershire into Derbyshire. No wonder they prefer to find work in EU countries.

These problems resulting from a hard Brexit were all predicted by the civil service years before we left, yet the Government did nothing to provide incentives for the transport industry to increase its capacity to cope with the inefficiencies that such a Brexit would impose.

John Catt, A member of the Leicestershire European Movement -

www.emleics.co.uk