One of the main aims of Brexit was to reduce the number of migrant workers and to reduce the flow of manufacturing outside the UK to lower labour cost countries, thereby keeping more jobs at home.
Was it, that really is news to me. If true it shows just how poor the understanding of how the economy works was in the Brexit community.
Lesson 1: If we do not have enough workers in this country to meet our requirements, it drives the price of labour up. Lorry drivers at the moment can currently almost dictate their wages. Employers are hiking their pay rates up, offering bonuses when they join a company and so on, employers then have to recoup their extra costs by passing them on to the consumer in higher prices, which contributes to inflation. The alternative is we let migrant workers in to fill all these vacant posts, costs of employment stay roughly where they are and transport costs do not contribute to inflation.
Lesson 2: Nothing can stop us buying goods from abroad if they are cheaper than those manufactured at home, whether we are in Europe or not. Do you really believe that the home consumer will buy expensive UK manufactured baby wipes, when they can buy Indian manufactured ones for less than half the price, for example?
Remember the 'Ever Given'? The huge container ship that got stuck across the Suez Canal and cause such disruption to freight traffic. She docked in Felixstowe this week. On her were 18,000 containers and every single one was filled with goods made in China. Not one single container had anything in it that was made in the EU. if it becomes difficult to import something from the EU, we will not make it in the UK, we will import from elsewhere, probably China.
However, nearly half our exports go to the EU. Brexit will only make exporting more difficult for things we do still make in the UK.