Port of Dover Critical Incident

[AndreaC74]

Why are we blaming the french? they didn't vote for Brexit and aren't responsible for increasing/paying for extra capacity at the French border posts on UK soil.

Stamping passports is what happens to 3rd country nationals & that adds time, a lot of it, when dealing with 100s of '000s of passengers, plus having recently been to France, i ve seen UK people arguing with French officials because they don't want their passports stamped!

The UK seems incapable of organising anything at the moment, the numbers travelling across the channel is entirely predictable and delays we are now seeing were talked about pre 2016, i remember seeing the graphs on how long the queues would be for just a few seconds of delay for each passenger.... all Project Fear.

@FelicityFlops you are quite correct nothing else has changed since 1970, except for all the silly pointless laws that the EU has forced upon us. Bring back 1970.

I bet not many leave voters are in the queue for their holiday to the Dordogne. How much must it cost in fuel to take your car abroad!

Does anyone know if it's smooth on the return journey from France to UK? How many check booths they have over there?

Although I think it's a bottleneck due to the start of school holidays, the crash on the M20, the extra few mins checking a passport and then add missing French officials into the mix and hey presto - big issues. Also I bet lots were put off from using airports after the recent reports of delays.

Hopefully both sides have learned from this and seen the chaos and will not allow it to build up like it did a few days ago. I said hopefully 😀

Another option is to scrap the Le Touquet agreement so that passport checks have to be done on the French side. The UK government was the driving force behind the agreement, however, so that wouldn't be popular. It would also probably still lead to jams and delays, just with vehicles trying to disembark rather than embark

Yes - imagine the queues at immigration at airports like JFK when each person is carefully scrutinised before being allowed in. It can be chaos.

If cars were in a similar situation - then Calais could just turn into a parking lot.

If the French wanted to play 'hardball', all they would have to do is to ask their staff to do enhanced checks. Perfectly legal.

You would then have Tory Ministers complaining that "The chaos at Dover has been caused by the French carrying out checks so they know who is coming into their country. We have asked the French to see if they can make things easier"

Meanwhile another Tory Minister would be saying "The chaos we have seen at Heathrow has been caused by UK Border carrying out the checks on non British passport holders. The British people rightly expect us to carry out checks at immigration to ensure that our country remains safe"

Cognitive dissonance at its finest.

Toodlepip

Actually, I think you're right. From the sample of queuers in cars interviewed, I had the impression of Home Counties middle class probably remain inclined.

Yes, because if we do remember them that means we might start asking questions about why the Tories nonetheless decided on the deal that they did, whilst knowing full well there were existing issues that would exacerbate the consequences of increased passport checking.

Take back control indeed.

I do wonder what the proportion is of Leave vs Remain voters who tend to use the Channel crossings are? Obviously there are lots of variables - but people who use the ports are aware of the way traffic easily used to flow, especially the lorries and the ease of travel across Europe.

Dover is a vital part of our infrastructure. Brexit has 'happened' - but those who are responsible for it need to take some responsibility and accept that the changes caused by Brexit will exacerbate issues such as at Dover and plan for them. The current plan seems to be to turn the M20 into a lorry parking lot.

'I bet not many leave voters are in the queue for their holiday to the Dordogne. How much must it cost in fuel to take your car abroad!'

Are you suggesting 'leave voters' can't afford fuel to take their car abroad? Are they all perhaps holidaying at Butlins in Skegness, reading the Sun with their England shirts on?

Brexit has 'happened' - but those who are responsible for it need to take some responsibility and accept that the changes caused by Brexit will exacerbate issues such as at Dover and plan for them

Best of luck with that one.

When we were in the EU, we had similar incidents as many posters have pointed out already. Nothing new here. Whether we are in or out, it has always had these types of incidents due to staff shortages.

Bollocks to there’s nothing new. Infinitely worse and more often is new. You can’t introduce new requirements and then say there’s nothing new.

To some extent similar, yes, but the people on the spot, including senior port officials, have been warning for some time about the extra stress on processing caused by leaving the EU/Customs Union and the potential for that new stressor to cause extra problems...

But I guess in some peoples eyes Port Officials are in the same category as "experts"...

"But I guess in some peoples eyes Port Officials are in the same category as "experts"..."

They certainly think they know more than Doug Bannister.

Travellers have been warned again to brace for queues and told to allow at least five hours to get their ferry to the continent, with 10,000 cars expected to travel through today – up on the 8,500 yesterday.
Mr Bannister told Ben Kentish: "We are in a post-Brexit environment, which means the transaction times through the borders are going to take longer because the passports need to be checked, they need to be stamped etc.
www.lbc.co.uk/opinion/dover-port-boss-brexit-delays-travel-chaos/

Dreamstate · Today 08:40
"When we were in the EU, we had similar incidents as many posters have pointed out already. Nothing new here. Whether we are in or out, it has always had these types of incidents due to staff shortages."

Dreamstate , when we were in the EU but not in Schengen, all the French officials had to do was look at the passport photo to check identity. Very often, if queues were building up they would just wave people through.

Now that we have voted to be a 3rd country, French officials have to see and stamp the passport and check how many journeys to the EU have occurred so that the 90 days limit is not gone over etc. This has tripled the transaction time. Multiply that by 10,000 cars and you get the "critical incident" that happened over the weekend.

Cleverly seems to be suggesting that the French should just stop checking passports

Indeed they should. They ought to be able to tell that the cars are full of law abiding Brits because none of them work in Downing Street.

Sorry @JaniieJones I did not mean that to sound dismissive and lots of Brexiteers will be jetting off overseas, but I stand by my point that it must cost a bomb to drive to the continent.

Clearly the cost of fuel is not high enough yet if people are still driving all over the place. I will have a word with Rishi and suggest he puts the taxes up, then he can pretend to cut them like NI when the time is right.

I've just read the last ten pages or so of this thread.

It never fails to amuse me how little people understand how the travel system works.

The comments about Ireland are the most special, given that the UK policy seems to have been simultaneously wanting a hard border to stop all these illegals whilst also having no checks on anything whilst insisting there must be checks. And the lack of awareness of the Good Friday Agreement and the Northern Ireland Protocol and how we want to rip up both.

Then we have the stuff about how it was like this pre brexit because the french go on strike. Of course at no point as part of planning have we considered the implications post brexit of a strike. Which is utterly bonkers.

Then we have people saying well we should just go on holiday in the uk more. Despite it clearly be an issue that we dont have the infrastructure to do that and its causing massive social issues with all these holiday lets. In terms of going back to the 1970s when people mass travel abroad wasnt a thing... Well neither was going away for more than one week of the year. We didn't have all these weekend away things or multiple holidays. And eating out wasn't nearly done as much.

Then we have comments about getting stamped in the airport in the canaries and how little time it takes. Whilst forgetting the huge issues at airports IN the uk to begin with. Youve got to first get out the country and the queues and problems are at the British infrastructure side of things.

I personally can't want until the EU visa system comes in, and the age of low cost travel really starts to kick in, in terms of the reaction about 'taking back control of our borders' actually starts to kick in. Remember the UK is also bringing in a mirror system. So if you need an £18 visa to enter the EU, how much does that add to a family holiday? And then there will be all these newspaper stories about 'ruined' holidays because someone forgot their visa, didn't order one with sufficient notice, can't go on a last minute break, can't go on a short business trip or was refused one because they got done for possession of weed when they were 18 and they are now in their 50s.

Its this amazing inability to understand that taking back control of our borders so its free from intervention of the EU is the same in reverse for the EU.

I am pretty damn fed up and im unlikely to get a holiday at all this year. But I must admit to having a certain relief that this also means I don't have to think about the stuff of leaving the country and having to tackle either an airport or a port. Nor hoards of miserable brits complaining about locals and the weather whilst on holiday in the UK. It defeats the point of a holiday.

Even KGB News had to have it spelled out to them...

And then there will be all these newspaper stories about 'ruined' holidays because someone forgot their visa, didn't order one with sufficient notice, can't go on a last minute break, can't go on a short business trip or was refused one because they got done for possession of weed when they were 18 and they are now in their 50s.

Not quite sure how that can happen if the UK and EU aren't data sharing.

I suggested Newhaven-Dieppe the other day. The crossing is quite a bit longer, and there are only 3 a day, but there haven't been any problems getting into the port.

I don't think it would be viable to increase the number of crossings on that route significantly though. The road layout doesn't lend itself to improvement (there's a level crossing and a swing bridge to contend with, and it's about 5 miles from any dual carriageway) and an accident on the coast road or the main E-W trunk road can gridlock the whole area in an hour or two.

@Sometimeswinning
I'm not shocked at Dover. I will also bet it will be sorted and won't be a problem next year/the next few days. This is only because it was an ideal time to create mayhem

France has moved on since 2016, i was quite surprised at how Brexit appears to viewed on the continent... no one cares anymore, they've their own issues to sort out.... its all a bit "Conspiracy theory" to suggest its some sort of cunning plot.

As for fixing it?
They've had 6 years to plan for this and added another 4 booths :(

If 12 check points are still leading to 4 to 6 hour delays and checks are taking 3 x longer, then its obvious that we need 24 to 30 fully manned booths, where do they go? who pays for their building and staffing? for what the UK has caused.

The irony is, Brittany Ferries (a french owned business) has seen bookings increase as people scrap their Dover plans and seek alternative crossings.

"France has moved on since 2016, i was quite surprised at how Brexit appears to viewed on the continent... no one cares anymore,"

So true , as my friends who live in France tell me.

I think there will be a 6 month grace period, starting from May 2023, if thats when it goes live.

This was very clear... but Brexiteers refuse to accept reality, so they will still claim it is France's 'choice' to do this. The truth is this was the choice of the British government - they wanted to 'bring back control' so they put up the hardest border possible and demanded we were treated as 3rd country.

I was banging my head on the desk today listening to James Cleverly (misnamed) saying the UK is no more of a risk now than when we were in Europe - in which case the Europeans are also no more of threat now than when we were in Europe - in which case why did we need to 'take back control' over the fucking border you - in which case why did we leave Europe? FFS.

To anyone who voted for Brexit: thanks a fucking bunch.