JUNE 2016 the UK voted 17 million to 16 million to leave the European Union.

The UK was deeply divided.

Four years of political trauma followed.

The Tory party was purged. All Brexit dissenters were out. Boris Johnson took over.

Brexit has then closed our borders. The end of free movement of people, workers, goods, and transport. UK walled off from the EU by territorial customs.

Which takes us to the current crisis in food and fuel supply chains and deliveries.

We have lost, to quote the haulage associations,15,000 EU drivers. They have gone home. On all accounts highly unlikely to come back.

And last year Covid put an end to UK wide HGV testing.

We have ended with the perfect storm.

Robert Readman and large numbers put all the blame for fuel stations now emptying on the public. The 'idiots' panic buying.

I don't. I put the blame squarely on UK government.

We would never have had 'warnings of shortages of supply', from BP and others, if we were not so chronically short of HGV drivers, including the loss of 15,000 UK based EU drivers.

And panic buying? That is true. But also rational behaviour. People will act in their own best interest - people highly dependent on transport.

And the media that Robert Readman now slates off for 'alarmist reporting'. The very same mass media that for four years drilled out the message Brexit would be wonderland.

All dissenters and critics warning of high risk dangers slated as moaners and re-moaners.

And now despite all the warnings we end with Brexit Britain collapsing supply chains. Covid making it all the far worse.

The perfect storm. And that is the whole point. It is government that is supposed to read global weather predictions. Be prepared for the "unpredictable". Not pursue wildly high risk policies leading the country now into the most dire state since the 1970s.

JEFF WILLIAMS

Jubilee Road, Poole