Fuel Runs Out in Major British Cities, London has Temporarily Suspended Competition Laws

The UK has suspended the operation of competition laws in the oil sector to allow fuel suppliers to share information and coordinate their response to fuel shortages.

In addition, according to the Guardian, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is considering using the army to supply fuel, as due to the crisis with drivers and panic buying, fuel is down between 50% and 90% at gas stations in major cities.

"Monday will start very badly," Brian Maderson, chairman of the Oil Traders Association, told Sky News earlier in the day, from whom the above figures came. However, he linked the crisis "purely and simply" to panic.

According to later published data of the same association, about two thirds of the 5,500 gas stations that are part of it no longer have fuel. For the rest, it has either fallen sharply or will end soon. The UK has over 8,000 petrol stations.

Temporary visas are not enough

Authorities in London have been criticized for days that this crisis could have been avoided with timely action. Downing Street's first reaction was to announce temporary measures such as 5,000 work visas for drivers to save the Christmas shopping season. Even this step, which is in fact a concession to an important promise before the Brexit referendum, is insufficient in some industries, and it will be weeks before future temporary staff start working.

The combination of changes in legislation and the immigration system, on the one hand, and the pandemic, on the other, exacerbated the crisis expected this Christmas. For the BBC, Elizabeth de Jong, a representative of the employers' association in the transport sector, Logistics UK, explained that the UK lost 72,000 drivers between the second quarter of 2019 and the same period...

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