The Germans could scarcely conceal their delight. According to Olaf Scholz, the socialist poised to succeed Angela Merkel as Chancellor of Germany, we can blame the shortage of lorry drivers, our half-empty supermarkets and closed petrol stations squarely at the feet of Brexit.
Some might describe this as 'schadenfreude' – taking pleasure in the misfortune of others. It is, of course, a German word.
But Herr Scholz's assessment is shared by a troubling number of people in Britain. People who should know better.
Wherever we look, captains of industry are demanding we reopen our gates to the cheap foreign labour that has done so much damage to our self-reliance.
In this, the bosses have been aided by a Labour Party that instead of seizing the chance to get better pay for home-grown workers, is turning its back on them and demanding the return of the EU's free movement of people. Never mind the ruinous long-term consequences.
According to Olaf Scholz (pictured), the socialist poised to succeed Angela Merkel as Chancellor of Germany, we can blame the shortage of lorry drivers, our half-empty supermarkets and closed petrol stations squarely at the feet of Brexit
Part of the government's reserve tanker fleet based at a depot in Fenstanton, Cambridgeshire. Military drivers will be deployed to deliver fuel to forecourts from Monday as the crisis at the pumps continues
Chief among the apologists for a low-wage economy is Rod McKenzie, the BBC executive turned managing director of the trucking industry's trade body, the Road Haulage Association.
Brexit, he says, made British-based Continental lorry drivers feel insecure in their jobs and made them think: 'Maybe Britain's not for us.' So they went.
Seventy per cent of the RHA's members wanted to leave the EU, yet McKenzie's association lobbied for the softest of soft Brexits with maximum rights for Polish and Bulgarian drivers to undercut our own.
Not that McKenzie's is a solitary voice. The Remain lobby is both angry and influential, even now. The fuel crisis is an all-too-useful shroud – and they are waving it with vigour.
They always said that little old Britain simply couldn't hack it alone in the bleak post-Brexit world, that an exodus of truckers and fruit-pickers would bring us to our knees, and so it has come to pass.
This is grotesquely untrue, of course. Yes, we are about 75,000 lorry drivers short. But the countries of the EU are also short of about 400,000 drivers, which will not be filled by Herr Scholz's beloved freedom of movement: one lorry driver relocating to Hamburg means one less staying in Warsaw.
Germany needs another 60,000 drivers of heavy goods vehicles while Poland's shortfall is a whopping 120,000.
Indeed, if we look at the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, a different picture emerges. Because while we have lost 12,700 EU truckers from our roads, the real damage has been done by the loss of about 55,000 British HGV drivers since the first quarter of 2020.
This is grotesquely untrue, of course. Yes, we are about 75,000 lorry drivers short. But the countries of the EU are also short of about 400,000 drivers, which will not be filled by Herr Scholz's beloved freedom of movement: one lorry driver relocating to Hamburg means one less staying in Warsaw. Pictured: Freight lorries queue at the port of Dover in December 2020
And why don't British truckers want to drive on British roads?
The answers are sadly obvious: scandalously low, irregular pay; long periods away from families; oppressive, EU-inspired bureaucracy; restrictive and unpleasant
