UK To Marshall Military Drivers To Distribute Petrol

The British government is taking more emergency measures to tackle the fuel distribution crisis which showed few signs of abating on Saturday, particularly in London and the southeast of England, according to a Euronews report.

Photo Insert: Around 200 military personnel, including 100 drivers, will be deployed from Monday in a move intended to ease the pressure at the pump.

Around 200 military personnel, including 100 drivers, will be deployed from Monday in a move intended to ease the pressure at the pumps, as long queues continued to be seen at filling stations going into the weekend. The army had been put on standby for such a move at the beginning of the week.

The Conservative government has also said that 300 fuel drivers will be able to come to the UK from overseas “immediately” and stay through March.

The fuel crisis is the latest in a list of issues linked to labor shortages caused by the pandemic and by Brexit, with supply problems also hitting supermarket shelves, fast food chains, and pubs.

The British government has also extended an emergency visa program for food haulage drivers in a bid to ease the pressure on a creaking supply chain. Industry estimates have put the shortage of lorry drivers at around 100,000.

Temporary visas for nearly 5,000 foreign truck drivers it's hoped will be recruited are to run from late October until the end of February, instead of expiring on Christmas Eve as originally planned.

The Christmas deadline for the program announced last week drew widespread criticism for not being attractive enough to entice foreign drivers.

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