The Army is on standby to cope with Britain’s food deficits created by a shortage of qualified truck drivers which has left numerous supermarket shelves empty in recent weeks.
Some 2,000 HGV drivers from the Royal Logistics Corps and other regiments are reported to be on a five-day notification to help dispense food and other vital stocks, including medication.
The Government is expected to make a formal request for help to the military imminently.
It comes after the Road Haulage Association warned in late July that there was a deficit of 100,000 lorry drivers in the United Kingdom, which has been hindering deliveries of food from warehouses to supermarkets.
Thousands of prospective drivers are waiting for their HGV tests due to a backlog created by lockdown, while several existing ones have left the United Kingdom after Brexit.
The problem has been heightened by COVID, with drivers having to go into self-isolation.
A source told a newspaper outlet that messages were being sent out to all Army personnel with HGV qualifications, and they’re being put on a five-day standby notice for driving jobs at major distribution hubs around the country.
Soldiers will be put up in hotels where required and will be working prolonged hours to help with the crisis.
They will be involved with food delivery as well as the transport of other essential goods and medical supplies.
The military intervention will form part of Operation Rescript, an ongoing operation that was launched to tackle matters relating to the COVID pandemic.
It comes after the Government tentatively extended the maximum number of shift hours for drivers from nine to 10 last month, enabling them to make longer runs, however, it was not enough.
James Bielby, head of the Federation of Wholesale Distributors (FWD), called for military intervention back in June.
He said that the situation had reached a crisis point and it was likely to get more serious as more hospitality venues opened up and demand increased, and he said that the Government needed to act very swiftly.
He said that they were concerned enough to recommend that the Government considered having Army trucks on standby to ensure there were enough vehicles and drivers to distribute food.
Premier Foods, one of Britain’s largest food companies, made a comparable proposal during a meeting between industry representatives and the Department of Environment Food & Rural Affairs (Defra).
But this country is in chaos, and project fear is now turning into project reality, and this now appears totally predictable and by design, and are our bare shelves in supermarkets because of Brexit, not the pingdemic, which it appears is being used as a cover.
Brexit doesn’t seem to be working out so well, but they’ll blame it on the ping app because of course, lorry drivers congregate so closely together in their trucks!
And although COVID was a worldwide virus, it was a great cover-up for Brexit, which has decimated this country, thanks to Boris Johnson’s ruinous agreement, although I’m not implying that Brexit is to blame entirely, so is COVID.
The Government appear to be hiding the shortcomings of Brexit under the COVID headline, but we can’t just blame COVID and the pingdemic because both are playing their small role in the deficit, but the most significant offender by far is Brexit, and of course, why use lorry drivers when they can get the Army to do it for free.
And it was evident that Brexit would create deficits, and that EU drivers would no longer want to work in the United Kingdom, but was that price worth paying for our freedom?
