Deluded, Divisive and Morally Bankrupt, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon uses HGV Driver and Fuel shortages to attack UK Government, in a tiresome rant over post-Brexit immigration policy', Sturgeon opts for flooding the country with cheap labour, why is it so called 'left' leaning politicians so anti working class, why is it they restrict opportunities, why do they discriminate against the working class by omission, neglect and rule changes?

Dear all 

I suppose it was only a matter of time before Nicola Sturgeon jumped on the grievance wagon again, and unsurprisingly, her 'any issue to complain' is about the HGV driver and fuel shortage. There are two things which should be established about both issues which the 'pro Brexit' camp has skated over which are very important. 

1/ The HGV driver shortage was caused by poor pay and conditions.

2/ The mainstream media created the fuel panic buying. 

Driving for a living is highly different than driving to work or indeed driving for pleasure, for one thing, most people get to go home at night to their own bed. HGV driving because of its nature sees some drivers having to sleep in their cabs, and not have proper access to shower or toilet facilities. So, when you hear stories of drivers sleeping in lay-bys and pissing into milk bottles, you get to see a snippet of the real life of a trucker. Another which is important to everyone regardless of what job they do is pay. You will hear tales of magical amounts of money being paid to drivers such as fuel drivers, but the reality is far from the truth of most drivers. The average hourly pay for a Fuel Tanker Driver in United Kingdom is £12.66. When you consider the the average salary for a CSCS Labourer is £11.13 per hour in Scotland, you can see how this highly skilled HGV job is underpaid massively. My brother is a joiner, if he does a date time shift in an agency, he can make between £20 and £22 an hour, and if he does a 'shop fitting' job, he can pull in a 70 hr week. So, his top line before tax and deductions is £1540. An HGV driver gets hit with not just with low pay, but also with strict legal laws regarding the amount of time they can work. A HGV driver must not exceed 60 hours working time, which includes driving and other work, in any single week. In addition they must not exceed an average of 48 hours working time over a specific reference period. It is important to stress the reason for the restricted working is health and safety. 

Given there are many lesser skilled jobs which pay higher hourly rates, allow you to do a 9 to 5 job, instead of shifts, why would you sign up? The main reason for such low pay was EU membership, specifically 'freedom of movement'. Freedom of movement only benefits a few people in real terms, but what it does do, is suppress wages by flooding a country with cheap labour. The people like Nicola Sturgeon aren't affected by freedom of movement in her job, nor does it affect the rate of her £157,861 a year plus expenses salary. When Nicola Sturgeon travels abroad she doesn't sleep in a drivers cab, she doesn't wash with baby wipes, and she doesn't piss in a bottle, her experience is 5 star hotel, luxury shower and toilet. Of course I have written before how Nicola Sturgeon doesn't care about working class people many times, she would rather sacrifice them, so that she can move on from First Minister and join the EU elite. In every stunt she has been involved in, to save Scottish jobs via the taskforce farce, she has never saved one! She uses working class people with the sole intention of pushing her independence agenda forward and shining a spotlight on herself as some kind of saviour. 

Nicola Sturgeon is quite the despicable human being. 

If we come back to the fuel shortage, this has been entirely whipped up by the mainstream media, they have used the lack of fuel drivers affecting a few garages to create a nationwide demand, that has resulted in panic buying. This isn't the first time that this tactic has been used, it was done during Covid, people flocked to supermarkets to panic buying of food and household essentials. Who would have thought at the supposed end of the world, the British people would be so concerned about access to bog roll. In this current manufactured crisis by the mainstream media, their efforts have caused emergency planning to be brought forward so that if needed, the British Army could ensure fuel supplies got through. Driving a fuel tanker isn't just a matter of having an HGV licence, there are other qualifications required, and it is also an anti social job with some fuel deliveries done at night. The average pay for a tanker driver using "indeed" as a source, puts their rate of pay at £14.50 an hour. Recently at the Labour Party Conference, activists called for a McDonald's worker to get £15 hr. If they believe that is fair, what price do they or should they put on the men and women who supply everything they use to live? Driving an HGV isn't the same as driving a car, and driving an articulated lorry isn't the same driving a lorry dubbed a 'rigid vehicle'.  I know this from experience because I have passed my car licence, my rigid vehicle licence, my bus licence and also my articulated lorry licence. However, I would need a refresher course to feel comfortable with the bigger vehicles. 

Nicola Sturgeon's intervention isn't needed or wanted in the current situation, the driver shortage isn't just a UK wide problem, many countries in the EU are experiencing the same problems. Freedom of movement forces down wages of jobs done by working class people, it doesn't however force down the wages of professional people such as dentists, doctors and engineers etc. As part of her grievance over Brexit, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon insists that the HGV driver and fuel shortage crisis is a result of what she calls Boris Johnson’s “reckless” Brexit policy. On both parts of her conclusion, she is wrong as I have explained above, if I can work it out, why cannot she do the same thing? The only logical conclusion to reach is that she; 

1/ Doesn't understand the issues relating to pay and conditions of HGV drivers (happening over years)

2/ She doesn't understand that HGV fuel driving is a highly skilled part of the transport industry

3/ She is thick!

4/ She is promoting her anti Boris agenda (he is blocking indyref 2)

5/ She is simply a mouthpiece and her background knowledge is shallow 

I think there is an argument to be made about several of the issues I have pointed out relating to Sturgeon's capability to understand an issue beyond the superficial. I would also add as a point, she should be working with the UK government on any issues like this, but always chooses not too! One person who is a bit player in the Nicola Sturgeon Show is Scotland's Finance Secretary, Kate Forbes who apparently has covid, not the smartest politician by a long chalk, but when a member of Sturgeon's lgbt clique, Derek McKay was caught pestering a 16 year old boy, his fall from grace led to Forbes sudden elevation to a top job. Promoted beyond her capabilities is a phrase which is commonly associated with SNP Government Ministers. Forbes told MSPs that the UK Government had a “ideological position” on Brexit and due to this, it has has prevented a “a swift resolution” to the situation. Just to be clear, Brexit has nothing to do with the current situation, the UK Government never created the driver shortage, and the mainstream media due to stupidity plunged us all into a fuel shortage. None of this could be laid at the door of Boris Johnson and the UK Government. You could argue that there was a case for more government funded courses for HGV drivers via a UK agency such as the DWP as happened in the past. But it isn't as simple as laying on courses, there must be a demand, and people must see the transport industry as a viable means of living. 

In Scotland, we have a 'pretend' parliament doing pretend politics, I can see only two reasons for going there. One to call it out for what it is, and two, to pick up a salary to allow you full time to ram every issue of neglect which Holyrood has never taken up or just gave lip service too. So, we have a Sturgeon stooge in the shape of Forbes addressing Holyrood's Economy and Fair Work Committee calling for “urgent action”. She wants a permanently fix the shortages, and she adds the problem “could be solved with a fair degree of ease” by UK ministers. It seems the Forbes solution is to place everyone in a job, and then import cheap labour. Unfortunately that isn't how the labour market works, certain jobs require certain qualifications, these qualifications can sometimes take years to do, and they will involve possible full time education. When the SNP talk about immigration, they tend to talk about importing doctors, nurses and engineers, what they don't talk about is the huge bulk of unskilled labour who then dispossess indigenous people from jobs and housing. Then the ordinary people forced into accepting low pay and conditions in a restricted job market. Freedom of movement sounds good on paper when people like Sturgeon and co cite the Doctor who does a '10 to midnight' operation which saves a life, but what they don't talk about is how cheap labour, and lack of opportunities that directly affects and impacts the working class. The term I use for people like Nicola Sturgeon who engage in making the lives of working class people worse by championing freedom of movement while at the same fail to provide the opportunities for working class people is 'reverse racism'. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_racism 

Although some people say that reverse racism doesn't exist, generally the people who make such claims don't want to confront their prejudice. The worst type of reverse racist is the person who hides in plain sight under the guise of proclaim themselves a 'liberal' person. You cannot reason with a reverse racist anymore than you can with an out and out racist, they are cut from the same cloth of bigtory. They are also responsible for the breakdown of community cohesion because people realise that they aren't interested in fairness, nor are they interested in justice unless it is a decision which they agree with. If you want to find reverse racism and other forms of discrimination, you can easily find it in political parties, and organisations such as NGOs, Universities, Colleges, and places like the BBC. In organisations like this merit has been abandoned in favour of discrimination. In the 1995 movie, The Tuskegee Airmen, there was a scene which I think you will understand what I mean about how merit has been abandoned by an intolerant and illiberal elite. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jp0ONJZF74 

"All we ask for is a fair and impartial opportunity, nothing yourselves wouldn't demand". 

As Kate Forbes delivers her speech to the Committee, you have to ask yourself, why isn't she standing up for Scots from any race or colour? Why isn't she bringing to the committee plans for helping working class people attain the skills they need? When the skilled people of another country come here to solve a temporary problem, they rob their own country of the chance to use their skills, thus subjecting their country to economic decline. Reading what Forbes says, it is clear she is interested in importing cheap labour. But, it is highly unlikely that these people will have the necessary qualifications to be fuel drivers, as it isn't simply about having an HGV licence, so surely she must realise this? I think many will conclude her injection is more about the SNP's ongoing scheme to try and wrestle immigration controls from Westminster so that they can flood the country with immigrants as a means to try and gain independence via the offer of a Scottish passport. We all know what the SNP's agenda is, it is independence at any cost to the detriment of Scotland and its people. 

Forbes said: 

“The bottom line is, and you are seeing the UK Government finally coming to a position of accepting that, that as an economy, we have valued enormously people who have come to this country to work. What we are seeing is those people who might have considered coming here to work are no longer doing so. That might be because of high visa costs, it might be because they no longer feel welcome – there are all sorts of reasons why people are no longer coming to this country to work.” 

Ms Forbes added: 

“Urgent action needs to be taken because this problem could be resolved with a fair degree of ease if steps were taken around visas, around immigration policy. I think the UK Government has accepted that with its most recent announcement around HGV drivers. The question is whether that is too little too late and whether that should have been done more quickly. Labour marked shortages are resolvable, they are within the gift of the UK Government and too often it’s an ideological position that has prevented a swift resolution than anything else.” 

No matter how the SNP try to dress up their window using any issue relating to immigration, it is all about a power grab, and nothing else. On Friday, Boris Johnson announced a temporary relaxation of immigration rules allowing 5,000 foreign HGV drivers into the UK for a three-month period. I personally doubt this is actually viable, there aren't fuel drivers who are all sitting about driving Tesco lorries etc when they can get a higher rate driving tankers. And the issue of qualifications is a major obstacle for those wishing to transport fuel, which cannot be simply waived away. Nicola Sturgeon is a busted flush, the question is, when does she go, and who falls on from her. With no job to forward herself onto either via the UK Government, or a prestigious organisation like the EU or UN abroad, she is the 'immigrant' no one wants. If you have any doubts about her future, just look at how the SNP treated Alex Salmond, once someone else gets the levers of power from a non Sturgeon faction, she will be lucky to get a place leading a commission or public board. 

Boris Johnson said: 

“What we want to do is make sure that we have all the preparations necessary to get through to Christmas and beyond, not just in the supply in the petrol stations, but all parts of our supply chain. You’re seeing the global economy really sucking in a huge amount of demand at the moment for gas, for lorry drivers, there are shortages around the world. It’s affecting countries across the world. But we’ve got to make sure we have everything in place as the recovery continues. And that’s what we’re doing.” 

To fix the HGV driver shortage requires better pay and conditions, people go to work to earn money, if they get a better offer, they put themselves and their families first. They aren't being selfish because they know people like Nicola Sturgeon aren't looking out for them. They know this by two things, what she says and what she does, she wants cheap labour to flood Scotland, this drives down wages and traps people who struggle to provide for their families. Where was Nicola Sturgeon over the last 14 years putting in place plans to address the issue of low pay and lack of opportunities and social mobility? She wasn't there, she is never going to be there, not for the working class people of Scotland. She has repeatedly nailed her colours to the mast, she supports the anti worker EU over Scotland, she supports big business over working class people, and she will always put Scots over blind personal ambition. You don't have to worry about Nicola Sturgeon selling out Scotland and its people, she already has.

Yours sincerely 

George Laird                                                                                                                                The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University 

ps, there were several typos in this original posting, which I would like to apologise for, so I have went back in and done some tidying up.