Shadow transport secretary Lilian Greenwood has warned that leaving the EU could have a “very direct impact” on the UK’s road haulage industry, a day before the referendum.
In an interview with the FairFuelUK campaign, the ‘remain’ campaigner said the industry “depends on our trade with Europe”.
She said: “I think if our trade with Europe decreased then obviously that would have a very direct impact on our hauliers, their jobs and the work they undertake.”
Greenwood added that Ukip leader Nigel Farage’s call for more trade with the Commonwealth could also impact the road haulage industry’s volumes.
She said: “Nigel Farage has talked about how we should be doing more trade with the rest of the world, all over the Commonwealth. Well that seems to be like there'd be less work for our hauliers and perhaps more work for shipping.”
FFUK interviewed ‘leave’ campaigner Boris Johnson last month, who said that if the UK votes to leave the EU tomorrow, it could give local authorities the power to impose more charges on foreign registered vehicles.
The former mayor of London said: “I often thought of putting a special tax on foreign-registered lorries coming into London.
“In the future, if we left, a mayor could say “I don’t want these international trucks – I’m going to put a charge on them”. You can’t do that at the moment because it would be held to be discriminatory.”
A poll by FFUK of 1,973 HGV drivers saw nearly two thirds of the sample backing Brexit.
The survey saw 69% saying they wanted to vote leave, 15% in favour of staying and 14% that were undecided. The remaining 2% said they would rather not disclose how they planned to vote, or that they didn’t plan to vote at all.
