Photo: PA
Photographs of empty shelves are being shared from across the country and workers in the lorry driving and supermarket industries are reporting food shortages, as a video of Michael Gove promising no shortages has emerged.
In an interview with BBC’s Andrew Marr in September 2019, the cabinet minister was asked if he was “absolutely sure” there would be no shortages of fresh food in the UK as a result of a no-deal Brexit.
Gove said in response that “everyone will have the food they need” but Marr said that was not the answer he wanted.
So he was forced into giving a more straightforward answer and went for: “No, there will be no shortages of fresh food.”
Needless to say, the interview did not age well.
One Twitter user shared the video with the caption “never trust a Tory”.
“There will be and the army will not make up the shortfall of HGV drivers (as a result of Brexit, not COVID). Did you know then that you were lying to the public, again?,” another asked.
And Laura Phillips said: “This has aged as well as a lettuce left unpicked in the field… #Brexit ramifications.”
Last year, comments resurfaced of Michael Gove saying in 2016 that the UK can do free trade with European countries if people voted to leave the EU.
Before the EU referendum, he said: “There is a free trade zone stretching from Iceland to Turkey that all European nations have access to … after we vote to leave we will remain in this zone.
“By being part of that free trade zone we would have full access to the European market but we would be free from EU regulation which costs us billions of pounds a year”.
But last year he said “the UK will be outside the single market and outside the customs union, so we will have to be ready for the customs procedures and regulatory checks that will inevitably follow.”
He added: “As a result of that we will be in a stronger position, not just to make sure that our economy succeeds outside the European Union but that we are in a position to take advantage of new trading relationships with the rest of the world.”
It comes as a supermarket worker recently revealed for The London Economic that for most of the week there are no deliveries and she had not seen anything like this in 12 years.
“The deliveries shortage is because of Brexit. I have been here 12 years and I have never seen this happening. Deliveries came before Brexit. During the pandemic, it was never this bad before.”
She added: “It’s not because of the pandemic because it has always worked last year.
“I have worked throughout the pandemic, I have never stopped when people started panic buying, we had some problems but because people bought everything, not because we didn’t have anything to sell like now.”
And a Romanian lorry driver has recently explained to TLE why he is thinking of following in the footsteps of his colleagues and moving back to Romania to work across Europe.
He saidd there is now more risk, tiredness and pressure on lorry drivers delivering to UK supermarkets, because they are expected to cover for Brexit-related drivers shortages under even longer working hours approved by the government.
Related: ‘There are no deliveries because of Brexit,’ supermarket worker reveals
Romanian lorry driver reveals why Brexit means shortages
Michael Gove comments from 2016 resurface as promises of frictionless trade get shattered
