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Sunday 24 July 2022

La Bataille De Douvres - Eh Merde

And so the excuses are deployed, the blame game reconfigured, the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press duly briefed: that which cannot be named has caused another traveller’s headache, thousands of holidaymakers have been delayed, with the conclusion as before. Brexit has bestowed upon us another of its negative benefits, and so it is someone else’s fault.


Schools broke up for the summer last week; it followed that there would be an exodus across the Channel beginning at the weekend. Airports would also be busier than usual, although, unlike at Easter, they had to yield the shock value crown to Dover, and to an extent the Channel Tunnel. Lorries faced yet more of those 18-hour delays. For holidaymakers it was a mere six hours.

The reason for this delay? Those days when passports would be proferred but waved away at French border posts were now over: as the UK had left the EU, and was now a Third Country, going from there to France meant crossing the EU’s external border. Passports must therefore have an entry stamp, and an exit stamp when passing in the opposite direction.

That enables EU member states to calculate how many of the 90 day allowance the passport holder has used up. All of this was signed up to when alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and his merry men did the deal, executed their Oven Ready Turkey. We signed for it, it was what we wanted as part of Taking Back Control. But here a problem entered.

Admitting that the passport examination and stamping was the cause of those delays would mean admitting that Bozo and Co had fouled up, that there were no Brexit unicorns. This could never be allowed to happen. And so it came to pass that it was, as always when the Tories and Brexit coincide, someone else’s fault. And that someone else was the dastardly French.

Liz Truss (for it was she) told the French to sort their act out, and to make sure this was heard by her intended audience, she told them on the front page of the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph. But her intended audience was not the French Government: it was the membership of the Tory Party. Nonetheless, this became the established wisdom.


So Dover’s Tory MP Natalie Elphicke also blamed the French. They were foreign, they were in the EU, therefore They Done It. She backed Brexit, therefore Brexit could not be the problem. It was left to travel expert Simon Calder, first seen brandishing a suspiciously European-looking passport outside London’s King’s Cross station, to bring the inconvenient truth.

Even before broadcaster LBC toldPort of Dover boss Doug Bannister tells LBC that it is 'absolutely true' that Brexit is ultimately to blame for the extreme delays at the port of Dover”, Calder had reminded usSince Brexit, everybody has to have their passport not just looked at, but properly stamped. That’s something we insisted on when we left the EU”. Soon he was off to Dover.

His verdict? “The blunt fact is leaving the EU has made leaving the UK much more difficult … it’s basically about 70 seconds … because the frontier official [has to stamp passports] - we asked to be treated like this, they’re not picking on us … we said we wanted to be third country nationals, we want to have our passports stamped when we go into Europe, we want to have all of that bureaucracy, that’s what we asked for”. No-one’s fault bar our own.

Not surprisingly, this inability of our Government and its press pals to come clean with the public caused irritation across the Channel: after the Blame The French Ploy was enacted, “French Transport Minister Clement Beaune hit back, saying France was not responsible for the additional border checks brought on by Brexit”. We should not blame what we wanted on others.

But blame it we will. The problem for Bozo and his potential successors is that an increasing number of that formerly adoring public is seeing through the fog of misinformation: Brexit has bestowed another of its benefits, and so Brexit is to blame. Along with the charlatans who sold it to us.

Brexit means bureaucracy. It means queuing. It means delays. Sad, really.


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11 comments:

Anonymous said...

So the European Union has a hostile environment for TCNs.....that is, third country nationals. Us.

Well I never.

Jeux Avec Frontières said...

"Britons say they'll NEVER travel through Dover again" - Daily Mail.
Yeah. I can picture them crossing the Channel in rubber dinghies.

Anonymous said...

An Englishman has two traditional enemies: the French, and his wife.

Plainly we need another Henry II. Or something.

Mr Larrington said...

Croatian woman interviewed in the queue by C4 on Friday: Is Brexit! They make excuses, but is Brexit!

Arnold said...

2016: End free movement!
2022: Why can't we move freely?

Exiled in Ard Mhaca said...

Buyers remorse for holidaying Brexiteers? Not bloody likely its those damned French again

Rivo said...

The sad thing is, many Brexiteers will lap up the narrative that the French are to blame, almost always followed by the declaration that they'll soon waive all this ridiculous bureaucracy once the lack of British tourists starts to bite. German Car Makers 2.0....

AndyC said...

Mr Larrington said - 'Croatian woman interviewed in the queue by C4 on Friday: Is Brexit! They make excuses, but is Brexit!'

As I recall from half watching that piece, the reporter tried to get the woman to lay some of the blame on the French / EU. She wasnt having it.

Anonymous said...

Just imagine.....we now have the "freedom" to create our very own home-based "entrepreneurial" people smugglers in the "labour market".

Well, someone has to penetrate the new European "markets". Otherwise we won't be "competitive". Even though the whole point of competition is to, er, eliminate competitors.........

Mr Larrington said...

One story has is that a lorry carrying £20,000-worth of perishables destined for the Haunted Pencil's gaff in Somerset is stuck in a queue outside Calais and isn’t going to arrive before they go off. On the other hand, the story may have originated with Gammon Broadcasting™ so may require copious seasoning with NaCl.

If it's true, it’s an example of that near-mythical beast, the Brexit Bonus.

Arnold said...

Mail readers haven't got the memo. Or Dickie"s personal moderator.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11047601/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-Travel-chaos-Dont-blame-Brexit-blame-France.html

Best rated.
Nope. Before Brexit French police had to check you had a passport, now they have to look inside at previous stamps to see if you have been in France in the last year, to check you have not broken the 90 day rule, then stamp it. This is because the UK chose to be a third country. France offered to build more passport control booths, but the UK said no. The problem is Brexit and the idiots who caused it.

Ive just come back from a two week holiday in France, driving from Burgundy to Loire via the Dordogne. What a country. The scenery is stunning, the roads are perfectly smooth and empty; theres free parking everywhere. The villages and towns are beautifully kept with community gardens and squares filled with chatting locals. You can swim in the rivers; you can cycle safely. Contrary to what the DM would have you believe, the French were friendly and welcoming and full of good humour. Im back home now after driving past queues of angry motorists on the British side of the Channel. Back to rip-off prices; back to busy pothole-filled roads; back to run-down towns and shut-up high streets. And back to an angry news agenda which tries to turn us on our nearest neighbours and each other. Seeing France and England next to each other as I have, it's clear that something has gone badly wrong in our country. We have gone backwards. I just hope we can get away from this downward spiral we are on.