Another victim of Covid?

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You are ignoring EU facts WM. These ships are specifically not flagged from these countries. They are flagged from Cyprus explicitly because they gain the EU border access but have significantly more easy labour rules.

Reality of the EU.

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The UK government is hampered by its own rules.

Legislation to protect employees in the UK was amended by Mr Grayling in 2018 so that the secretary of state does not have to be notified of mass redundancies on ships registered overseas.

It is rare that the lawyers make the level of mistake being touted.

The government has threatened the firm with unlimited fines, with Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng writing to its chief executive claiming "clear rules" include "notifying, in advance … the Secretary of State."

"Failure to meet the notification obligation is a criminal offence and can lead to an unlimited fine," he wrote.

But Kevin Barnett, head of employment at marine law specialists Lester Aldridge LLP, told Sky News that Mr Grayling's amendment removed the need to notify the government.

"The amendment states the notification must be made to the competent authority of the state where the ship is registered, instead of the secretary of state," he said.

He said Mr Kwarteng's insistence that he should have been notified of the sackings in advance is "incorrect."

A letter to Mr Kwarteng from P&O's chief executive Peter Hebblethwaite written after the sackings says: "The very clear statutory obligation in the particular circumstances that applied was for each company to notify the competent authority of the state where the vessel is registered.

"All relevant vessels are registered outside the UK. Notification was made to the relevant authorities on March 17."

Most Interestingly, the "relevant authorities" saw no need to notify the UK.

It appears the ships were registered in Cyprus and the Bahamas.

You can pretty much bet the law is about to change again.