P&O sackings are Brexit's final smack in the face for Dover

IF any town is symbolic of Britain's Brexit catastrophe it is Dover. After years of being treated as a car park amid chaos around the port, the final insult came this week when hundreds of locals were sacked on the spot by P&O Ferries, to be replaced by foreign workers.

The ferry firm is blaming the £100m it has lost in the last year - a result, of course, not only of the pandemic but also of the no-deal Brexit's chaotic effect on UK exports and imports.

One of the first to condemn the mass sackings was former South East MEP Nigel Farage, who tweeted: “It is a disgrace that cheap foreign workers will replace 800 sacked P&O Ferries staff. Brexit was about putting our people first."

Yet there was no sign of Mr Farage in Dover yesterday to soothe the brows of the 62% of people there who believed his Ukip rhetoric and voted Leave. Surely, by now, they must be wondering how they were sold such a pup.

The ferry company's management appear almost as deluded as Putin in their belief that what they are doing is for the greater good.

But they also seem uncomfortably confident that they will get away with it. And my fear is that they will.