Why Britain should get used to empty gas stations and bare shelves

Grinch-like warnings about looming threats to Christmas dinners and holiday shopping shortages are starting to pile up in Britain as a slow-moving supply chain crisis expands across the country. 

On his turkey farm in the village of Danbury, about 75 kilometres northeast of London, Paul Kelly has 57,000 turkeys to sell before the holiday season. 

Kelly is predicting a scramble to ensure that they all end up on British dinner tables.

"Without workers in the packing stations, there is no Christmas," he told CBC News on his KellyBronze farm.

Britain's meat and poultry industry relies on foreign workers to keep processing plants going in the busy pre-Christmas season and right now they're short between 15,000 and 25,000 people, according to Britain's Meat Processing Association. 

"As of Jan. 1, [when Brexit came into effect] we no longer had access to the team of people that have been coming over from Europe to help us pluck turkeys," said Kelly.

Several weeks ago, British shoppers first noticed a shortage of fizzy drinks in stores because of a lack of CO2. Then McDonald's ran out milkshakes.   

But the reality of the supply chain problems only really started hitting home when up to 75 per cent of gas stations in England ran out of fuel two weeks ago. 

Even now, the Petrol Retail Association says 13 per cent of service stations in London and southeast England remain empty.   

This week, drivers from Britain's military were drafted into making some deliveries.

"We're not starving — there aren't riots in the streets. But on the other hand, it's getting more difficult to get things delivered, to get construction projects underway, more difficult to buy some things in the shops and to fill your car up," economist Jonathan Portes of King's College London told CBC News.  

"Some of the complex workings of a modern economy just aren't functioning the way they should."

Now it's the turn of Britain's agricultural sectors to feel the pinch, as they try to weather a triple whammy of logistical bottlenecks, a shortage of processing plant workers and a lack of truck drivers to deliver goods.

Problems not unexpected

"This has been a building crisis for the last 18 months — two years really,"  said Nick Allen, chief executive officer of the British Meat Processors Association.

Allen said some British pork farmers are already being forced to slaughter their animals in their barns because they're running out of space to keep the pigs as understaffed processing plants are unable to accept new deliveries.

The supply chain challenges and disruptions faced by the United Kingdom this fall are hardly unique — the entire continent of Europe is short of truck drivers and a surge in demand for shipping containers has stretched global shipping fleets.

But Britain's departure from the European Union, which only fully kicked in 10 months ago, is clearly exacerbating the problems in the U.K., said Portes.

'There is no question that Brexit has aggravated some of that." 

The government of Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson has responded by generally downplaying the severity of the problems.

In interviews, Johnson has suggested the shortages and logistical backups are largely attributable to a "giant waking up" of the U.K.'s post-COVID economy, with intense consumer demand outpacing efforts to ramp things back up.

COVID restrictions also made it harder to train new workers — particularly truck drivers — which has exacerbated the labour shortage and hindered fuel deliveries to service stations.

More barriers

But Portes said the more relevant factor is that suddenly Britain's labour pool has shrunk because it no longer has access to as many workers from Europe.

"Brexit means greater barriers to trade and migration flows between the U.K. and the rest of Europe," he said.

"That is not a catastrophe for the U.K. economy.  We will continue to trade with Europe, but it will be more difficult and more expensive." 

Kelly,  the turkey farmer, said the supply chain problems will lead to some perverse outcomes in the weeks ahead — such as possibly more European turkeys being sold in the U.K. than British ones.

He said processing plants tend to plan months in advance and without certainty about their workforce, many scaled back turkey sales to British grocery stores.

Instead, Kelly said, he expects the big chain stores may turn to European turkey suppliers if they run short.

"It's a crazy situation [importing French turkeys for a British Christmas] — the irony is amazing." 

The Johnson government has said it will issue up to 5,000 temporary visas for European truckers to work in the U.K. and there may be more temporary visas for farm workers — but in a major speech Wednesday, the prime minister kiboshed the idea of restoring a more open visa regime to help the U.K. get through the crisis.

"The answer to the present stresses and strains which are mainly a function of growth and economic revival is not to reach for that same old lever of uncontrolled immigration," Johnson told party members at the Conservatives' annual convention in Manchester.

Portes said the shortages and difficulties Britons are dealing with now are likely just the beginning.

"Longer term, the U.K. economy will have to adjust to having lower levels of migration from Europe. It's not the end of the world, but we will have to live with the consequences."