Markus Andrews

Labour would deny law firms access to government contracts unless they meet a new target for free legal services, the party has announced.Shadow justice secretary David Lammy is set out the party’s plan to create a state-run “national pro bono centre” to support those who can’t afford to hire a lawyer but are ineligible for legal aid.Labour says the policy would mean city law firms can only be considered for government contracts if they provide at least 35 hours of pro bono legal services, per lawyer, per year.“City law firms are making billions in profit, while low-paid workers see their tax bill rise and wages fall,” Lammy is expected to tell the Labour conference on Tuesday.“This party recognises the importance of the private sector doing their bit in partnership with the public sector”, the MP said, adding that national service would mean “binding” pro bono targets for firms seeking government contracts.But legal experts criticised the Labour plan – claiming it would not necessarily fix the problem of access to justice for those who can’t afford lawyers.Alasdair Mackenzie, a leading asylum and immigration lawyer, said the idea smacked of “Victorian-style charity handed out by the rich” and urged Labour to boost the existing legal aid system.He said: “Giving time free to people who can’t afford legal advice isn’t a bad thing as such, but it wouldn’t be necessary if we had a functioning legal aid system.”The government has been accused of “hollowing out” legal aid – the system used to ensure those who cannot afford to hire their own lawyer receive help – through successive rounds of cuts.Barrister Mira Hammad said Lammy’s plan was a “terrible idea” that showed “complete contempt” for the specialist lawyers already working in the legal aid sector.“Pro bono advice from [city firm] lawyers who don’t understand the area can do more harm than good,” she tweeted.Labour has previously promised to reverse Conservative government cuts to legal aid services and make it a “fully functioning public service”.Lammy will also use his conference speech in brighton to call for a “turning point” in tackling violence against women and girls.The party has previously announced a series of proposals to misogyny – including making it a hate crime, increasing minimum sentences for rapists and creating a new offence for street harassment.The shadow justice secretary will say: “The tragic deaths of Sabina Nessa, Sarah Everard, Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman should have been a turning point for change.”Lammy has also criticised his own party for failing to do enough to ensure black men run for parliament. One of just three black men who are Labour MPs, he said the party needs to do “considerably more” to fix the problem by removing barriers to entry. More

Keir Starmer says workers asking for £15 an hour ‘not asking the earth’Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of hypocrisy after photographs resurfaced of him at a protest backing a £15 minimum wage two years ago, as he pursues a lower minimum today.Frontbencher Ian Murray said the resignation of Andy McDonald over the wage row appeared to be a “planned sabotage” of the Labour Party Conference.Diane Abbott, former shadow home secretary, said Mr Murray’s suggestion was “nonsense”. “It is a fact though that Keir Starmer supported £15 an hour until recently, and he’s been on protest demanding it,” she said.Former leader Jeremy Corbyn today attacked the stance of the Labour party under Sir Keir Starmer. Writing in the i,he said Sir Keir and his team had shown “they want to prop up, not challenge” the “wealth and power of the few”.In a speech later today, Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, is set to invoke the famous Blair-era slogan “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” while pledging to tackle antisocial behaviour if elected.He will accuse the Conservatives of being “soft on crime and soft on causes on crime” in a knowing reference to the New Labour pledge.Show latest update

1632840837Labour will never ‘defund the police’A Labour government would never “defund the police”, the shadow home secretary said.Black Lives Matter protesters have called for money to be taken from the police and invested in community programmes, education and mental health care. They said diverting funding would make society safer.But Nick Thomas-Symonds today said: “No Labour home secretary will ever defund the police.“That’s not our party, that’s the Tory party, and they have spent 10 years defunding our police.”The shadow home secretary used his conference speech to present Labour as the party of law and order.Liam James28 September 2021 15:531632840238Labour promises ‘biggest ever’ strategy to improve child healthShaun Lintern, health correspondent, goes over the key healthcare pledges from the Labour conference:Liam James28 September 2021 15:431632839397Sadiq Khan needs 24/7 protection due to ‘colour of his skin’The mayor of London said he needs 24/7 protection due to his faith and ethnic background.Sadiq Khan said he at first denied the offer of police protection when elected in 2016 but changed his mind when officers said those close to him could be at risk.He said 51 police officers on a team protect him “around the clock” and he revealed his staff had been offered counselling to deal with the “vitriol” that was levelled at him.Mr Khan said he was inspired to speak openly about his protection and the reasons for it by footballers who pushed back against racist abuse.He said: “I’m not going to allow these racists and these Islamophobes to intimidate me, and I’ll never bow to them.“The mayor of the greatest city in the world needs protection 24 hours a day, seven days a week because of the colour of his skin and the god he worships, that can’t be right.”Liam James28 September 2021 15:291632838617Tories ‘soft on crime’ and Priti Patel ‘never delivers’Nick Thomas-Symonds turned a Blair-era phrase around to attack the Tories in his conference speech.New Labour pledged to be “tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime”. Today’s Conservatives, the shadow home secretary said, were “soft on crime and soft on the causes of crime”.He lambasted Priti Patel’s record as home secretary, saying she “likes to talks tough but she never delivers. “She says she backs our frontline police officers and staff but then insults them with a pay freeze.“It’s no surprise that she has lost the confidence of 130,000 rank-and-file officers represented by the Police Federation, who are the undisputed voice of policing.Liam James28 September 2021 15:161632837489‘Bring back neighbourhood policing’: Shadow home secretary pledge at Labour conferenceA Labour government would “bring back neighbourhood policing”, Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, said in his Labour conference speech.The Police Federation welcomed the pledge. John Apter, the federation’s chair, said reducing neighbourhood policing was a tough decision that had to be made due to austerity.Mr Thomas-Symonds said Labour would also introduce new laws targeting domestic abusers and county lines drugs gangs.Liam James28 September 2021 14:581632836661‘Build back better’ just ‘blah blah blah’ to Greta ThunbergGreta Thunberg jibed at Boris Johnson’s climate rhetoric as she addressed the Youth4Climate summit in Milan.She used soundbites from speeches by the prime minister such as “build back better” before dismissing them as “blah, blah, blah”, to applause from the crowd.“This is all we hear from our so-called leaders. Words that sound great, but so far have led to no action,” she said.Liam James28 September 2021 14:441632835750NHS being privatised ‘by the backdoor’, says LabourJonathan Ashworth said the government was creating a “two-tier health system” as people take out loans and crowdfund to pay for private operations to beat the NHS backlog.“A two-tier health system, privatisation by the backdoor. That’s the Tory threat to our NHS. That’s what we’re fighting and that’s why we’ll rebuild our NHS in every community across the land,” he said.Liam James28 September 2021 14:291632835137‘People will die’ unless health and care workers prioritised for petrol, Labour warnsLabour has called for health workers to be given priority for petrol.Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said patients could die if doctors, nurses and other hospital workers were delayed or unable to get to work due to queues at petrol stations.Liam James28 September 2021 14:181632834477Labour ‘more united’ than people thinkJonathan Ashworth said the Labour Party was “more united” than people think, after Andy McDonald resigned from the front bench.The shadow health secretary told BBC Radio 4’s World at One he was “sorry that Andy has resigned” and added he could “see why he is frustrated” because “something in his policy area” had not been adopted.He added: “I have seen the Labour Party more divided than this”, and confirmed that this was under Jeremy Corbyn.Mr Ashworth said: “There was waves of shadow ministerial resignations and you know what – with no disrespect to various colleagues who resigned from the front bench – I think they thought it would create a political earthquake and it didn’t.“Resignations don’t always have the impact which – with respect to our colleagues – they think they are going to have.”Liam James28 September 2021 14:071632833397Labour delegate ‘transphobically abused’ at conferenceCries of “shame” were heard in the Labour Party conference hall after one delegate said she suffered transphobic abuse in the centre from a fellow delegate.Patricia Hannah-Wood, a councillor of Pendle Labour Party, said: “On Sunday evening … I was in the loo downstairs with a few of my colleagues from the northwest when I was transphobically abused in this conference centre by one of our sisters in this conference hall now.“It should not happen, we have got an anti-bigotry and anti-bullying policy in the Labour Party. We need it to be enforced.”Liam James28 September 2021 13:49 More

Labour is braced for Boris Johnson to suspend the Northern Ireland Protocol at next week’s Tory conference, to milk the “drama” and distract attention from the fuel crisis.Jenny Chapman, the party’s Brexit spokeswoman, revealed she anticipates Article 16 of the treaty to be invoked within days – triggering a fresh upheaval in EU-UK relations.The government has continued to threaten the move – despite experts warning it offers no escape from the post-Brexit trade barriers – after Brussels rejected rewriting the Protocol.Speaking at Labour’s conference, Baroness Chapman said the prime minister was “not enjoying the headlines or the sight of people queuing up petrol stations”.“I’m ashamed to say this about our government, but I think that makes it more likely that they will want to trigger Article 16,” she told a fringe meeting on the future relationship with the EU.“They will like the drama of it and they will seek to use that to further their own party political advantage. And that should shock nobody in this room.”Asked about rumours that the button will be pressed as early as next week, the Brexit spokeswoman replied: “I would not be surprised if what is predicted actually happens.”The warning came as Baroness Chapman ruled out Labour campaigning to rejoin a customs union with the EU, saying: “It’s not going to be like that.”Lisa Nandy, the shadow foreign secretary, and former Brexit committee chair Hilary Benn joined Baroness Chapman in warning Labour would lose the next election if it backed the policy, or rejoining the single market.Baroness Chapman said the “toxicity” of the debate was easing – and acknowledged “massive holes” in the Christmas Eve deal that has created huge problems for traders.But she argued it was “unrealistic” to seek to “click back in” to the economic structures the UK had left, particularly “after all the aggravation that we’ve caused ourselves and our European partners”.Mr Benn said: “We are not going to be fighting the next election saying we are going to rejoin the customs union or the single market. We are not.”In July, the EU threw out the UK’s demand to renegotiate the Protocol, hailed as “a fantastic deal” by Mr Johnson when he signed it in 2019.The government wants full Irish Sea trade checks to be abandoned and for the agreement to no longer be policed by the European courts.Two weeks ago, the Brexit minister David Frost said the EU “would be making a significant mistake” to ignore the UK’s threats to suspend parts of the Protocol. More

Labour has called on the government to give health and care workers priority at the petrol pumps, warning that otherwise patients could die.Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth was speaking amid increasingly urgent calls for help from care workers who are struggling to reach clients due to the fuel shortage.One home care service said delays due to queues at petrol stations were forcing carers to push back calls to vulnerable elderly people and to work long after their shifts to ensure clients are seen.Shaleeza Hasham of CHD Care at Home backed calls for prioritisation for key workers, saying the impact of the fuel shortage on carers and been “enormous”.“Many of our carers are unable to get enough fuel to make their rounds as most petrol stations are limiting them to £30. Carers can do up to 100 miles per day so these restrictions mean that they are having to fuel up more often as they cannot fill their tanks,“ she said. “We look after extremely vulnerable individuals, some of whom cannot even get out of bed without support or assistance, and the situation is proving extremely difficult and stressful. Being unable to get to clients who depend on us just isn’t an option.”Homecare Association CEO Jane Townson said she had been appealing for assistance from the Department for Health since Friday, but had been told only that the situation was being considered.“It seems the government has decided there isn’t an issue and that means local resilience fora can’t invoke their emergency  plans,” said Ms Townson. “We want essential workers, including home care workers, to have access to fuel. We need that now. We need the government to acknowledge that there are risks to the health and well-being of older and disabled people.”Asked if health and care workers should be given priority access to fuel, Mr Ashworth told BBC Radio 4’s World at One: “Yes. We are facing a crisis, because if doctors and nurses and midwives and care assistants can’t get to the bedsides of their patients, then people will be left stranded, people will be left in the most desperate of circumstances, some people could end up losing their lives.”Mr Ashworth called on health secretary Sajid Javid to call an immediate meeting with health and care unions and professional bodies to reach agreement on a system to ensure key workers can access fuel during the current emergency.“We need urgency and we need grip,” he said. “We haven’t had that so far.“We can’t leave vulnerable and desperate patients stranded without the care that they deserve.“It is time for some leadership here, because patients must come first and if a doctor or nurse can’t get to their patient, that is a catastrophe.”The public sector union Unison has called for designated petrol stations to be set aside for key workers only.And the East of England Co-op has said that if problems persist until Thursday, it will operate a key worker-only policy between 6-7am in order to ensure they are able to fill their tanks. More

Boris Johnson must stop “hiding away” and tell the British public to stop the panic buying of petrol, according to the former government planning chief who managed the fuel crisis of 2000.Mike Granatt, the ex-head of the civil contingencies secretariat, said it was time for the prime minister to make clear announcement about the scale of the fuel crisis.“It’s called leadership. Somebody needs to stand up and say this to people rather than hide away,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.The former planning chief praised former prime minister Tony Blair for solving the fuel crisis by delivering a clear message that the country could not cope with any more panic buying.“In 2000 the prime minister at the time got a grip on this stiff,” said Mr Granatt. “[Blair] stood shoulder to shoulder literally with the fuel operators and gave a press conference and explained to people unless we all slow down [buying] the system would not get back into balance.”Mr Granatt said the “seminal” moment of the 2000 fuel crisis was when the government’s realised it would take three weeks of normal petrol buying to rebalance the system.He said the crisis demanded Mr Johnson break political conventional by making clear media announcement during the Labour Party conference in Brighton. “I find this explanation about party conferences to be just that – an excuse,” said Mr Granatt.The government has announced that Army tanker drivers have been put on standby in preparation to ease the drastic short of lorry drivers and help deliver fuel in order to reduce disruption at petrol stations.Defence sources have said that 75 military drivers have been put on standby initially – with a further 75 along with 150 support staff available if needed, with several days of specialised training still required before soldiers can be deployed.Asked if the military deployment would be enough, Mr Granatt said: “In the numbers we are talking about? I don’t think so. I think it’s being done for the purposes of reassuring people that government is doing something.”The panic buying of petrol shows no sign of ending, retailers have warned, as long queues were again reported outside stations open on Tuesday morning.The British Medical Association (BMA) called for key workers to be given priority at petrol forecourts, saying NHS and care workers “can’t afford” to spend hours waiting for fuel. “We need urgent action today from the government,” said the BMA’s Dr David Wrigley. The NASUWT education union said teachers should be prioritised for fuel access or risk further disruption to schools. “The government must urgently consider making teachers a priority group for access to locally available petrol and diesel fuel supplies,” said general secretary Patrick Roach.Brian Madderson, chair of the Petrol Retailers Association (PRA) told the Today programme that “disappointingly” people were continuing to panic buy fuel.He said: “As soon as a tanker arrives at a filling station, people on social media are advising that a tanker has arrived and then it is like bees to a honey pot. Everyone flocks there and … within a few hours it is out again.”The petrol retailers’ chief said the idea of prioritising key workers for fuel was unworkable. He described it as a “very complex situation”, adding that it should be a “last resort”.Mr Madderson also said that his members were not putting a £30 cap on customers filling up at their stations, unlike some retailers. “It is confrontational, we don’t want to put our staff at risk with confronting their customers, so that has got some merits, but also a lot of demerits.”Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, chair of the defence select committee, has said the army should be mobilised immediately – not just put on standby – to “regain public confidence” and held end the fuel crisis.In an attempt to alleviate the shortage in heavy goods vehicle (HGV) drivers, the government has also announced plans to issue 5,000 temporary three-month visas to foreign drivers.Labour’s shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said he was “very worried” about the impact of the fuel shortages on the delivery of healthcare.“It would be an absolute disaster if nurses, midwives and doctors can’t get to the bedsides of their patients,” said Mr Ashworth, speaking at Labour’s annual conference in Brighton.“Ministers need to get a grip. If we weren’t at conference we would all be in parliament dragging ministers to the House of Commons to answer for this.” More

A supply shortage has been making the headlines for weeks now and there seems to no change on the horizon as the country battles a fuel crisis thanks to a shortage of HGV drivers.It comes as Britain’s mounting fuel crisis which has seen pumps run dry being labelled as a “direct consequence” of Brexit, by the EU’s former chief negotiator Michel Barnier.Mr Barnier, who is running for the French presidency, said the drastic shortage of lorry drivers and ongoing supply chain problems were down to the UK’s decision to quit the EU.The fuel supply issues comes only weeks after Ikea, the furniture company that also sells meatballs, has apologised for shortages of about 10 per cent of its products, and the company in the UK said that they were caused by “disruption of global trade flows and a shortage of drivers, which have been exacerbated by the pandemic and Brexit”.However, Ikea in the Netherlands, where shortages are also affecting about 10 per cent of its stock, offered a slightly different explanation: the “economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic is proceeding faster than expected” and there is “congestion in ports” because “Chinese terminals were temporarily closed due to local coronavirus outbreaks”.Obviously, there was no mention of Brexit in that statement, because the Netherlands remains in the EU. The different explanations were spotted by the Guido Fawkes website, which is pro-Brexit, but that does not mean that it is wrong to point out the inconsistency.The problem is that the causes of shortages – in the UK and elsewhere – are complicated, and so when they started, people gave several explanations, which in the UK often included Brexit.In some specific cases, this was indisputable. There are some goods coming to the UK from the EU which are now subject to tariffs because of the “rule of origin”. Although the post-Brexit trade deal allows EU goods to come to the UK tariff-free, anything which was originally made outside the EU is now subject to customs duties.Obviously, there was no mention of Brexit in that statement, because the Netherlands remains in the EU. The different explanations were spotted by the Guido Fawkes website, which is pro-Brexit, but that does not mean that it is wrong to point out the inconsistency.But quite often problems have been caused by labour shortages. Pubs and restaurants cannot find staff, and their owners often say that their EU workers went home after Brexit. This is true, but it is probably not mostly because of Brexit. Many central European workers went back to their home countries during the coronavirus lockdowns, because their jobs disappeared and they wanted to be at home for the crisis.Because the UK left the EU at the end of January 2020 and the virus struck a month later, it was easy to conflate the two events – although the Brexit transition period didn’t end until 1 January this year, which is when its effects were really felt. Before then there was no change in the status of EU citizens in the UK – and indeed since then any of them who are working here were entitled to continue to do so. The only difference on 1 February 2020 was that EU citizens may have felt less welcome in the UK, as they were now in a non-EU country, but this is unlikely to have had a significant effect.The same confusion has beset the debate about the shortage of lorry drivers, which has had knock-on effects in causing shortages of everything from milkshakes to medical equipment. A few drivers might have turned down jobs travelling between the UK and the EU because of the extra paperwork, but one of the more important causes was that “EU workers went home” – after Brexit, but because of the pandemic.There were other specific causes of the lorry driver shortage: a change in their tax treatment made the pay less attractive; and there were delays in issuing HGV licences – again caused by the pandemic.The conventional view of almost all economists is that Brexit will have damaging effects on the British economy in the long term – if you make trade more difficult with your biggest market, you make it less profitable. In normal times, the British economy will continue to grow, but slightly less fast than it would have done otherwise. The period since we left the EU has been far from normal, however, and the economic disruption of behaviour changes and lockdowns since then has been huge the world over.Most economists say that the current shortages are overwhelmingly caused by the coronavirus disruption, and that it is hard to separate out the minor contribution made so far by our leaving the EU.The trouble with analysing this subject is that partisan biases are strong. Dedicated Remainers blame everything bad on Brexit if any remotely plausible connection can be made. Convinced Leavers, on the other hand, switch effortlessly from suggesting that there is no proof that Brexit so far has had any effect at all to claiming that it is pushing up wages for unskilled labour – and that this is a good thing.In an attempt to cut through the bias, The Independent is holding an online event on 6 October to explore the hidden costs of Brexit and do what we can to tease out the Brexit and pandemic effects on the economy. I shall be chairing a panel of experts who will try to shed more light than heat on this complicated question. The event is free, so do register at the link below. More

Sir Keir Starmer was “showing solidarity” with workers when he photographed at a protest backing a £15 minimum wage two years ago, Labour has claimed amid a growing row over the party’s low pay policy.The Labour conference was thrown was disarray after Andy McDonald quit as shadow employment rights secretary in protest at being told to argue against a national minimum wage of £15 per hour.A 2019 photo of Starmer campaigning next to McDonald’s workers fighting for £15 minimum wage has gone viral, as left-wingers accuse him of going back on previous support for the hike.He was also filmed at the 2019 London protest saying: “I’m really pleased to be here this morning supporting the staff at McDonald’s, and they’re not asking for the Earth, they’re asking for the basics – £15 an hour.”Diane Abbott, who served in the shadow cabinet under Jeremy Corbyn, said: “It is a fact that Keir Starmer did support £15 an hour until recently and he has been on protest demanding it.“It is no good clapping these people and then not be prepared to give them a decent minimum wage,” the Labour MP told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.Corbyn also accused Starmer and his team of wanting to “prop up” wealth and power by failing to back a conference motion to make a £15 per hour minimum wage party policy.But Labour frontbencher Nick Thomas-Symonds denied any inconsistency over the issue – claiming the party’s position of pushing for a minimum of £10 an hour was the “responsible thing to say”.Asked about the photo showing Starmer at the McDonald’s workers’ protest for £15 an hour, the shadow home secretary told LBC: “He was showing solidarity with those workers who were seeking to fight for it.”Thomas-Symonds said Labour would assess its minimum wage policy closer to the next general election: “What we’re saying as well is that we don’t know what the economic conditions are going to be … when Boris Johnson chooses to call the next general election.”Thomas-Symonds could not name the current minimum wage when asked for the figure on LBC. “Well, it’s below £10 … I don’t know off the top of my head. I’m just being quite honest with you.”Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen suggested a £15 minimum wage would harm the effort to boost the number of lorry drivers in the UK. “Imagine the impact that would have on lorry drivers wages,” he tweeted.The Tory added: “Why would any driver face nights away from home, poor living conditions and low pay when they could stay home and earn nearly as much?”McDonald said he quit as shadow employment rights secretary after being ordered to argue against a national minimum wage of £15 per hour and against statutory sick pay at the living wage ahead of Tuesday’s vote. “This is something I could not do,” he wrote.The leadership’s fresh battle with the Labour left comes amid accusations that the resignation of McDonald from the shadow cabinet was an act of “planned sabotage” by Starmer’s opponents.Shadow Scottish secretary Ian Murray said: “We’re not quite sure why he resigned yesterday, he seems to have said one thing and written another. That looks as if it might be a planned sabotage of conference, rather than it being about any principle.” More

Britain’s mounting fuel crisis which has seen pumps run dry is a “direct consequence” of Brexit, the EU’s former chief negotiator Michel Barnier has said.Mr Barnier, who is running for the French presidency, said the drastic shortage of lorry drivers and ongoing supply chain problems were down to the UK’s decision to quit the EU.“Part of the answer is linked, effectively, to the consequences of the Brexit because the UK chose to end the freedom of movement [of people],” he said.“And there is a clear link to the truck drivers,” Mr Barnier added.“In addition to the freedom of movement, the UK choosing to leave the single market – that means that the UK decided to rebuild, for the very first time, non-tariff barriers between the EU and the UK. It is a direct and mechanical consequence of Brexit.”The French politician was speaking at a virtual event hosted at the London School of Economics, promoting his new book My Secret Brexit Diary – which details his time negotiating the exit deal on behalf of the European Commission.The former Brexit negotiator also told BBC’s Newsnight that the Northern Ireland protocol “cannot” be dropped and remains the “only way to find a solution for all the problems created by Brexit”.Mr Barnier also claimed Mr Johnson “knew exactly what he signed” when he negotiated the Brexit deal with the EU. “What creates problems in Ireland is Brexit, nothing else.”Despite his criticism of Britain’s decision to leave the EU, Mr Barnier has been accused of adopting Eurosceptic rhetoric in his bid to win the French presidency for the centre-right Republicans.He stunned ex-colleagues in Brussels earlier this month by saying it was time for France to “regain sovereignty” lost to the European judiciary, and has called for a referendum to impose a five-year moratorium on immigration to France from outside the EU.Former Irish premier Leo Varadkar, now the country’s trade minister, also said Brexit was largely to blame for the fuel shortages and empty supermarket shelves in the UK.“We can see, in England, real difficulties because they have left the single market, because they have left the single labour market – you know, gas stations closed, concerns about products getting to them by Christmas,” Mr Varadkar said on Monday.“I think some of the difficulties that are being experienced in Northern Ireland are less about the protocol and more about Covid and Brexit, but they’re all getting wrapped into one and the protocol is being blamed.”It followed similar comments by Olaf Scholz, the man who looks set to replace Angela Merkel as Germany’s chancellor.“We worked very hard to convince the British not to leave the union. Now they decided different and I hope they will manage the problems coming from that,” said the leader of the Social Democrats, referring to the driver shortage. More