Political activist group Led By Donkeys has launched a new campaign blaming Brexit for the UK’s petrol crisis.
Panic-buying across the country has led to extensive queues, fights and stockpiling of petrol at forecourts over the last week, after BP warned the government it would soon be facing distribution problems.
While there is no shortage of fuel at the petrol refineries, there are not enough HGV drivers to move the product around the UK to meet the current demands, especially as the public take more than their fair share.
The HGV shortage is occurring across Europe but is particularly bad in Britain – so Led By Donkeys has blamed Brexit for discouraging EU drivers from working in the UK.
The campaign group posted a billboard in Exeter on Thursday which reads, “Brexit isn’t working” alongside a photo of a long car queue outside a petrol station.
The Twitter caption reads: “They’re not fighting on forecourts in France.”
Just three hours after Led By Donkeys’ shared their billboard on Twitter on Thursday, the post had more than 10,000 likes.
The government has dismissed all claims that the current crisis with HGV drivers to related to Brexit.
However, the UK has just unveiled a temporary three-month visa for overseas drivers to help alleviate the issue. Most neighbouring EU nations are not suffering to the same extent as Britain either.
This was the second billboard uploaded by the activists about the HGV driver shortage in recent days.
On Monday in Nottinghamshire’s Worksop, the group put up a sign with the same caption and an image of empty supermarket shelves.
The campaign group also shared a photo of another billboard, which included a tweet from prominent Brexiteer Nigel Farage’s tweet back in 2017.
The tweet reads: “If Brexit is a disaster, I will go and live abroad, I’ll go and live somewhere else.”
While Brexit is a large contributing factor to the current HGV driver shortage, the backlog of driving tests from three Covid lockdowns and the unappealing lifestyle of being a lorry driver is thought to have influenced the shortfall of lorry drivers.
Panic-buying across the country has led to extensive queues, fights and stockpiling of petrol at forecourts over the last week, after BP warned the government it would soon be facing distribution problems.
While there is no shortage of fuel at the petrol refineries, there are not enough HGV drivers to move the product around the UK to meet the current demands, especially as the public take more than their fair share.
The HGV shortage is occurring across Europe but is particularly bad in Britain – so Led By Donkeys has blamed Brexit for discouraging EU drivers from working in the UK.
The campaign group posted a billboard in Exeter on Thursday which reads, “Brexit isn’t working” alongside a photo of a long car queue outside a petrol station.
The Twitter caption reads: “They’re not fighting on forecourts in France.”
Just three hours after Led By Donkeys’ shared their billboard on Twitter on Thursday, the post had more than 10,000 likes.
The government has dismissed all claims that the current crisis with HGV drivers to related to Brexit.
However, the UK has just unveiled a temporary three-month visa for overseas drivers to help alleviate the issue. Most neighbouring EU nations are not suffering to the same extent as Britain either.
This was the second billboard uploaded by the activists about the HGV driver shortage in recent days.
On Monday in Nottinghamshire’s Worksop, the group put up a sign with the same caption and an image of empty supermarket shelves.
The campaign group also shared a photo of another billboard, which included a tweet from prominent Brexiteer Nigel Farage’s tweet back in 2017.
The tweet reads: “If Brexit is a disaster, I will go and live abroad, I’ll go and live somewhere else.”
While Brexit is a large contributing factor to the current HGV driver shortage, the backlog of driving tests from three Covid lockdowns and the unappealing lifestyle of being a lorry driver is thought to have influenced the shortfall of lorry drivers.
