The latest on the UK's fuel crisis

In recent days if there wasn’t a line outside a UK petrol station, chances are it was empty of fuel.

Now Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the fuel crisis is starting to ease, and we’re hearing similar sounds of optimism from within the industry.

The Petrol Retailers Association said a survey of their members revealed 37% of filling stations were out of fuel – that may not sound good, but it’s an improvement from the weekend.

The fuel crisis has impacted everyday lives, but also jobs: taxi drivers, delivery drivers and of course essential workers, including first responders.

The British Medical Association suggested the government designate some filling stations as a priority for such staff. 

The UK government put the British Army on a hard standby, with personnel trained and ready to drive fuel from refineries and platforms to forecourts that need it.

They’ve also made policy announcements to tackle the issue at the heart of this crisis: a lack of truck drivers.

In addition to encouraging retired drivers with an HGV qualification to return to work, they’re offering temporary visas for 5,000 foreign drivers.

It’s a fraction of the 100,000 drivers that the UK needs, according to the Road Haulage Association.

The president of the British Chambers of Commerce compared the temporary visa scheme to throwing a thimble of water on a bonfire.

Supply chains remain fractured for multiple sectors due to a shortage of UK truck drivers. It’s an issue that’s been years in the making, but is reaching a breaking point now, with a confluence of causes: Brexit, the pandemic, online shopping demand, low wages, not enough driving instructors to name a few.

Tempers are frayed, and it’s not just within the echelons of power, with some scenes of violence at petrol stations between drivers lining up for fuel.

This petrol crisis may be easing, but the UK’s winter of discontent could be just beginning as a shortage in drivers threatens more supply chain crises before Christmas.

In an interview with British media, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the fuel shortage is "starting to improve."

Johnson said he sympathized with people who had been "worried about their journeys, worried about whether they'll be able to use their cars to see their loved ones," and that he understood the frustration.

However, the prime minister said "we're starting to see the situation improve" with more petrol retailers reporting fuel deliveries were coming through. Johnson urged people to go about their business "in the normal way," and to "fill up when you need it."

Johnson went on to say that the fuel supply constraints were caused in part by "a slightly misleading account of something which got leaked and caused a big and totally understandable surge in public demand."

"The actual number of lorry drivers that were short in that particular sector isn't isn't very big," the prime minister said. "But generally, there is a there is a shortage in that profession around the world."

Some background: A shortage of fuel tanker drivers forced some petrol stations to close last week and triggered a spate of panic buying by British motorists. With thousands of service stations having since run dry, the UK government announced a series of emergency measures to address the fuel crisis, including issuing temporary work visas for 5,000 foreign truck drivers and suspending competition law to allow suppliers to deliver fuel to rival operators.

Rising energy bills, higher prices and a critical shortage of workers leading to food and fuel supply constraints are threatening to stall Britain's recovery from the pandemic.

The crises afflicting the UK economy have sparked talk in newspapers and among politicians of a looming "winter of discontent," a reference to the wave of strike action in 1978-79 that brought the British economy to its knees. There's even talk of stagflation, the nightmare combination of stagnant growth and high inflation.

Although shortages, supply chain delays and rising food and energy costs are affecting several major economies, including the United States, China and Germany, Britain is suffering more than most because of Brexit.

Specifically, the form of Brexit pursued by the UK government — which introduced stringent immigration policies and took Britain out the EU market for goods and energy, making it much harder for British companies to hire European workers and much more costly for them to do business with the country's single biggest trading partner.

It didn't have to be this way — there were other options for a future EU-UK relationship. Worker shortages, for example, were not an inevitable outcome of Brexit, nor was going it alone on energy. But in Prime Minister Boris Johnson's ideological rush to "get Brexit done" amid fraught negotiations with the European Union, agreements in several crucial areas, including energy, were sidelined.

The UK government's post-Brexit immigration system, meanwhile, was designed to reduce the numbers of unskilled workers coming to Britain and end what the government described as the country's "reliance on cheap, low-skilled labor," despite a domestic unemployment rate in the region of just 5%.

Britain had a record 1 million job vacancies between June and August, according to the Office for National Statistics. Restaurants, pubs and supermarkets, including Nando's, had to temporarily close some locations last month due to staff shortages or because certain ingredients weren't delivered as a result of fewer truck drivers.

Supply chain constraints exacerbated by Brexit means that UK consumers are facing surging food and energy bills at the same time that pandemic support measures are being unwound, including government support for wages and a 20-pound ($27) weekly uplift to social security payments.

This week the UK government was forced to partly back track on its stringent post-Brexit immigration policy after thousands of gas stations ran dry over the weekend and food retailers warned that the country had just 10 days to "save Christmas."

In an interview with broadcasters on Tuesday, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps acknowledged that Brexit "no doubt will have been a factor" in contributing to the fuel supply crisis.

To ease the pressure, the government will issue temporary visas to 10,500 foreign truck drivers and poultry industry workers. But industry groups say the measure won't make much difference, in part because it's unclear whether EU workers want to come back to a country that's become more hostile to their presence.

Read the full analysis here.

The UK military is on standby to deliver gasoline to service stations after a shortage of truck drivers forced some to close last week, triggering a spate of panic buying by British motorists.

Drivers have been forced to wait in line for hours at the pumps that are still open, and local media has reported instances of violence between irate customers as tensions rise.

The long lines and confusion are causing extra stress for people with disabilities.

Emma Vogelmann, who has spinal muscular atrophy and uses a ventilator via a tracheostomy, told CNN Business on Tuesday that her carer contacted her to say she couldn't see her if she didn't get petrol.

"It's a really stressful situation for her and for me trying to figure out if she was going to be able to get here for a shift," Vogelmann, lead policy adviser for disability equality charity Scope, added.

Eventually, her carer was able to find fuel, but disabled people across the country are facing similar stresses.

She urged people who are filling up their tanks unnecessarily to think about the impact it has on others.

As well as dropping people off at nightclubs, train stations and shopping centers, David Lawrie's taxi drivers are relied upon to transport disabled passengers, and drive children to school. But as fuel stations across the UK run dry, those drivers are having to make difficult decisions about who does and doesn't get to travel.

The UK military is on standby to deliver gasoline to service stations after a shortage of truck drivers forced some to close last week, triggering a spate of panic buying by British motorists. Drivers have been forced to wait in line for hours at the pumps that are still open, and local media has reported instances of violence between irate customers as tensions rise.

But people who don't drive might be the most disadvantaged.

Lawrie said he had heard reports of taxi drivers in the English city of Colchester, who had to stop driving over the weekend in order to conserve fuel so they could ensure they would be able to transport students with special educational needs this week.

"We've got pensioners that are housebound, because we can't get to them," he added.

Some drivers attempting longer trips have been forced to abandon their cars after running dry, while essential workers have reported not being able to do their jobs without fuel.

The British Medical Association on Monday called for emergency measures to allow healthcare staff priority access to fuel, warning that "there is a real risk that NHS [National Health Service] staff won't be able to do their jobs, and provide vital services and care to people who urgently need it."

"While the Government has said it is putting plans in place to alleviate the shortage of HGV [truck] drivers to transport fuel, the results of this won't be immediate. Healthcare and essential workers must therefore be given priority access to fuel so they can continue their crucial work and guarantee care to patients," Dr. Chaand Nagpaul, the association's council chair, said in a statement.

Motorists are also worried about how they will get to work.

"Right now, I have enough petrol but if I don't find any today or tomorrow, I can imagine not being able to take my car and that will turn my 25-minute journey into possibly about an hour and a half," medical student Priyanka Oza told CNN Business on Monday, adding that the greater London hospital she works at is poorly connected via public transport.

"I have to take a few buses, or even go into central [London] and come back out."

Lawrie said that if the problem isn't resolved soon, workers who rely on fuel for their livelihoods will suffer.

"If there isn't fuel there isn't any income because we don't use fuel to get to work we use fuel for work. So if we can't drive, we can't pick passengers up, but if we can't pick passengers, we have no income. So it's a massive problem," Lawrie added.

The UK's fuel supply crisis is seeing the "first tentative signs of stabilization" as more fuel is now in the filling stations, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told journalists on Tuesday.

"As the industry said yesterday, the sooner we can all return to our normal buying habits, the sooner the situation will return to normal," he said, as he urged people not to bring water bottles to fill up at fuel stations.

Shapps claimed that the fuel crisis was "almost entirely caused by coronavirus and the inability during lockdowns to test new HGV (Heavy Goods Vehicle) drivers."

"Brexit I hear mentioned a lot, and it no doubt will have been a factor. On the other hand, it's actually helped us to change rules to be able to test more drivers more quickly – flexibilities that we have received by coming outside of the EU and being able to change the law," Shapps said.

British Chamber of Commerce President Baroness Ruby McGregor-Smith slammed the UK government's plan to offer temporary visas to up to 10,500 truck drivers and poultry workers to avoid supply chain disruptions ahead of Christmas.

In a statement Sunday, McGregor-Smith called the measure "insufficient," comparing it to throwing a thimble of water on a bonfire.

The full statement says:

Some background: Worker shortages are a growing problem in Britain, which had a record 1 million job vacancies between June and August, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The shortage of truck drivers has been exacerbated by the pandemic and Brexit, which resulted in tens of thousands of EU nationals leaving their trucking jobs in the United Kingdom.

A number of sectors have been affected by the shortage of truck drivers, including food and fuel deliveries.

The head of the Petrol Retailers Association, which represents independent petrol retailers in the UK, said there are "early signs that the crisis at pumps is ending."

Gordon Balmer, the executive director of the association, said more of the group's members are reporting deliveries of fuel.

Here's the full statement:

Up to 10,500 lorry drivers and poultry workers are to be offered temporary UK visas in an attempt to avoid supply chain disruptions ahead of Christmas, the government said in a statement.

The UK government previously ruled out issuing visas to foreign workers, but reports on Saturday suggested ministers were planning a U-turn.

According to government's statement, 5,000 heavy goods vehicle (HGV) drivers and 5,500 poultry workers have been added to the existing visa scheme until Christmas 2021 "to ease supply chain pressures in food and haulage industries during exceptional circumstances this year."

Up to 4,000 people will be trained as new HGV drivers "to help tackle skills shortages and support more people to launch careers within the logistics sector," and nearly 1 million letters will be sent to all drivers who hold an HGV license, "encouraging them back into the industry," the government said.

Worker shortages are a growing problem in Britain, which had a record 1 million job vacancies between June and August, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The shortage of truck drivers has been exacerbated by the pandemic and Brexit, which resulted in tens of thousands of EU nationals leaving their trucking jobs in the United Kingdom.

A number of sectors have been affected by the shortage of truck drivers, including food and fuel deliveries.

The UK's Road Haulage Association says Britain needs 100,000 more drivers to meet demand. The driver shortage has been caused partly by Brexit and Covid-19, and the loss of about a year of driver training and testing.

CNN's Hannah Ryan, Hanna Ziady and Chris Liakos contributed to this report.