Analysis: Brexit cold turkey: UK tries to kick 25-year imported labour habit
The longer-term impact on growth, Johnson's political fortunes and the United Kingdom's on-off relationship with the European Union is unclear
The United Kingdom's 25-year-old model of importing cheap labour has been up-ended by Brexit and Covid-19, sowing the seeds for a 1970s-style winter of discontent complete with worker shortages, spiralling wage demands and price rises.
Leaving the European Union, followed by the chaos of the biggest public health crisis in a century, has plunged the world's fifth-largest economy into a sudden attempt to kick its addiction to cheap imported labour.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Brexit experiment - unique among major economies - has further strained supply chains already creaking globally for everything from pork and poultry to medicines and milk.
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Wages, and thus prices, will have to rise.
The longer-term impact on growth, Johnson's political fortunes and the United Kingdom's on-off relationship with the European Union is unclear.
"It's really a big turning point for the UK and an opportunity for us to go in a different direction," Johnson, 57, said when asked about the labour shortages.
"What I won't do is go back to the old failed model of low wages, low skills, supported by uncontrolled immigration."
