British military personnel in fatigues began delivering fuel on Tuesday to ease an acute trucker shortage that triggered panic buying at the pumps, though Prime Minister Boris Johnson denied the world's fifth largest economy was heading into crisis, Reuters reports.
A post-Brexit shortage of workers exacerbated by the global strains of the COVID crisis has sown chaos through supply chains for everything from fuel and pork to poultry and bottled water, raising concerns growth could be crimped.
Military personnel were photographed by Reuters at several fuel depots in southern England driving tankers, some with instructors, and then delivering fuel to a gas station.
Asked by BBC radio if the United Kingdom was in crisis, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: "No."
An air of chaos has gripped Britain in recent days as a deficit of truckers left fuel pumps dry across the land, and a spike in European wholesale natural gas prices tipped energy companies into bankruptcy.
With fuel companies and supermarkets warning that a shortage of drivers was hitting deliveries, the government said late last month that it would temporarily reverse its immigration rules and give 5,000 visas for EU drivers to operate in Britain.
It said 300 of those could arrive immediately to drive oil tankers. Johnson said 127 drivers had applied.
