Poll: Brits ‘far more likely’ to have had shortages than EU nations

Brits are many times more likely to have faced food and fuel shortages than people in half a dozen EU countries, a poll has revealed.

The survey results come as worlwide supply chain issues caused by the Covid pandemic have hit global trade earlier this year, with transport backlogs and labour shortages leading to gaps on shelves.

But despite experts and industry representatives telling the UK government that Britain has had it worse because of Brexit pushing away Eastern European workers such as lorry drivers, Tory ministers insisted Brits have it as bad as the rest of the world.

UK versus EU respondents on food and fuel shortages

The new YouGov poll comes as UK residents made their voices heard, and admitted they faced or know people who experienced food and fuel shortages – many time more than people in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Sweden and Denmark, and somewhat more likely than those in the US.

The responses were recorded earlier this month, with 56 per cent UK respondents confessing they faced food shortages over recent weeks, and nine per cent saying they knew people who did.

In EU countries, those affected were between three and nine times less personally affected by shortages, with 18 per cent in Germany, 16 per cent in France, 12 per cent in Sweden, eight per cent in Denmark, seven per cent and six per cent in Italy.

And in terms of people they knew experienced food shortages, eight per cent said that was the case in Denmark and Italy, and 58 per cent said they did not even know supply chain issues caused food shortages.

An Italian woman working for a big British supermarket said in July that there were no deliveries for most of the week and she had not seen anything like that in 12 years.

‘Deliveries shortages were caused by Brexit’

The woman, who worked in the London area at the time, said a friend who worked for another supermarket was also missing deliveries.

She told The London Economic: “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.

“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.”

According to The Guardian, Britain was the only country where a significant amount of people also experienced fuel shortages in recent weeks – 33 per cent, compared to a maximum of 10 per cent in any other country.

In Germany, France and Italy, 37, 38 and, repectively, 53 per cent admitted they have not even heard of fuel problems before – compared to 11 per cent in the UK.

Andra Maciuca

Andra is a multilingual, award-winning NQJ senior journalist and the UK’s first Romanian representing co-nationals in Britain and reporting on EU citizens for national news. She is interested in UK, EU and Eastern European affairs, EU citizens in the UK, British citizens in the EU, environmental reporting, ethical consumerism and corporate social responsibility. She has contributed articles to VICE, Ethical Consumer and The New European and likes writing poetry, singing, songwriting and playing instruments. She studied Journalism at the University of Sheffield and has a Masters in International Business and Management from the University of Manchester. Follow her on: