The press has done a really bad job of explaining the truck driver shortage - mostly because they want to use it as an anti-Brexit weapon - but "truck driver immigration" doesn't solve the problem. Basically, a lot of UK companies were paying their drivers so badly that pretty much only people living in lower cost of living countries, using the much cheaper training and licenses from those countries, and generally breaking the rules on things like breaks too could afford to do them for that money. Anyone living in the UK with the skills to drive trucks safely could find better-paying work with better conditions doing something else - and a whole bunch of them did.

Anyway, the whole point is that those drivers who've left don't actually have the licenses and training to drive in the UK and couldn't afford to live here. The whole thing was an artefact of EU rules specific to lorry drivers that allowed them to work here using cheaper (and I think less stringent) qualifications from elsewhere whilst also living elsewhere, and of even the minimal restrictions there were on things like rest time outside of their cabs being effectively unenforceable. Without the weird distortions caused by those EU rules there's no way to get back to where we were, and opening up immigration wouldn't do it. Also, those rules were causing problems here and elsewhere in western Europe before Brexit, and there was already a substantial shortfall in drivers back then too, so it wasn't a sustainable situation.

From what i understood from a old French HGV driver who used to do inter-european trips:

The UK still have plenty of qualified drivers. Short-haul drivers have to be paid either the minimal wage of a country of the negociated sector wages if the sector Union is good. The Unions in the UK are worse than French unions (i wonder how it is possible) and did not secure any minimal guaranties, the drivers takes those minimals from EU + national laws. And while the pay is not that poor compared to other EU countries, HGV drivers also used to have a tax break and bonuses for crossing the channel. Now i think they lost this advantage (from what i understood). Also long haul UK -> portugal, UK-> Italy were probably the best paid trips, and are now filled by French drivers (probably other EU drivers too).

From what i understood, short-haul are the worst: worst pay, you have to get off your truck and help the stock or factory workers fill your truck if you don't want unbalanced cargo or worse, the hour are not much better than long haul except you don't have bonus day off.

> The whole thing was an artefact of EU rules specific to lorry drivers that allowed them to work here using cheaper (and I think less stringent) qualifications from elsewhere whilst also living elsewhere

No true for local haulage. For long haul, you do have companies who plot the trips to go through let's say Poland so they can take Poland's minimums on pays and qualifications. Not true for all EU long haul though (Uk-France it is quite expensive to cheat)

This is spot on. I personally know several people with UK Cat. C+E licences and there is a less than 0 chance that they will be working as lorry drivers any time soon.

[They work(ed) in the motor and film industries, the benefits and pay being in a completely different ballpark to haulage, even though driving large vehicles was a small part of the job]

> are not even compromising on truck driver immigration now

Are you saying they should? I am from and in NL, and with all furthering EU integration there was the 'promise' from politicians it would be for the better for anyone. People who doubted this, for example truck drivers, were discounted as 'plebs' and not sophisticated enough.

Guess what happened when free movement of labor was granted to the Eastern block? Citizens from these countries quickly replaced the local drivers to the point Dutch transport agencies engineered mechanisms which guaranteed to could keep selecting foreign labor.

For the plebs this was of course no surprise. The ruling class just postulates 'everybody should become a knowledge worker'. I am highly educated but keep close tabs with all classes in my community.

The EU is mostly a trade bloc, a market for labor, where commodization (of labor) thrives. Primarily beneficial for companies and government (workers). It is my opinion we should build strong local economies with opportunities for all.

My only motivation for writing this is to present a differing viewpoint on the truck driver story.

I mean you're basically describing why protectionism exists.

Of course cheaper labor will displace more expensive labor, but that is quite literally why these jobs exist. Pay alone is not the reason the UK has a driver shortage, it's also the entire lifestyle that comes with it.

The EU works on the idea that you can work anywhere (with some restrictions) not too different from how this works in different US states. Over a sufficiently long period of time the differences in pay in the EU will move closer. Not entirely, but quite a bit. And that is the long game that will solve these problems more than to restrict labor markets.

Protectionism vs open markets, nothing needs to be black and white.

You are just re-iterating the tiresome mantra of the EU beneficiaries 'in the end it will all work out for you too'. Except, maybe not in your lifetime.

It is a fundamental neo liberal viewpoint, and I admit in my opinion Labor (parties) have abandonded their constituency since the mid-80s.

And I think that needs to change, and if it takes a bit of protectionism, so what.

If you think that in our lifetimes we won't see an increase of quality of live in eastern Europe then I have some bad news for your about your expectations to see benefits from protectionism.

Brexit did not make people in the UK happier, quite the opposite. I don't see a future where this will change.

> Brexit did not make people in the UK happier, quite the opposite.

Do you have sources for this?

Brexit (and the confected anti EU sentiment that led to it) has only ever been about pointing blame at the EU to explain/distract from the UK's gradual decline. That's why nobody's happy and it'll never be done with.