What the P&O debacle really tells us about Brexit

It goes without saying that sacking your entire staff via a ten-minute video call while their cheaper, foreign replacements sit outside in buses is a pretty disgusting way to treat people. True, P&O’s cross-Channel operation has been rendered unprofitable as a result of Covid, but this wasn’t a case of a headcount reduction or management urging pay restraint until the company can get back on its feet again. It was a wholesale dismissal of workers, plenty of whom will have had decades of service. No wonder some refused to leave their ships.

How ironic, however, that so many of the biggest critics of P&O this week are ardent Remainers. What the shipping line has done is exactly what so many employers were doing during the latter years of our membership of the EU: taking advantage of free movement in order to go over the heads of British workers and bus in much cheaper foreign workers instead.