Labour shortages must not be seen as simple case of business vs Brexit

Labour shortages must not be seen as simple case of business vs Brexit

It’s been a year since British business was told Brexit was a bit like moving house. “It’s a hassle at first, but you are upgrading,” said Michael Gove, now the government’s supremo for Levelling Up.

That phone meeting last October — where 250 business leaders were chastised for their “apathy” in failing to prepare for a Brexit deal that hadn’t yet been negotiated — was described as “disastrous” and “embarrassing” by people who took part.

Relations between the government and the business community could only go one way. Down, as it turns out. British business, like the rest of us, finds it has moved to a place where no Christmas turkeys are available and there’s an empty petrol station round the corner.

It’s not entirely clear whether, in the government’s eyes, the labour shortages affecting sectors from haulage to retail, food and drink and manufacturing are another failure by business to prepare, or all part of the grand plan.

Either way, the post-hoc justification of this as a strategy to secure an overdue boost to real wages and reach the sunlit uplands of Brexit just continues the mood music since 2016: a suspicion that business is backpedalling or trying to sully the ideological purity