Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Covid

Mumsnet doesn't verify the qualifications of users. If you have medical concerns, please consult a healthcare professional.

Original poster

Why are the UK responsible for the stuck lorry drivers?

207 replies

Gleps · 23/12/2020 22:10

This might be a really silly question and I might be missing something obvious but I’d like to understand why the uk are responsible for all of the European lorry drivers who are stuck at Dover?

When this all started, it was down to us to get all the Brits living in places like Wuhan home. So why when the situation is reversed is it now our responsibility again?

OP posts:
titchy · 23/12/2020 23:03

@MyLifeNow20

I dont understand this. Why cant they turn their lorries around and go home? Cant the police control the motorway so they can
Fucking hell have you not seen the news. ShockShockShock
cdtaylornats · 23/12/2020 23:03

The French are testing truckers on their side heading to the UK.

France isn't totally sovereign in that it has obligations to the EU.

Motorina · 23/12/2020 23:06

@MyLifeNow20

I dont understand this. Why cant they turn their lorries around and go home? Cant the police control the motorway so they can
For 95% of them home is in mainland Europe. Hence the anger: they're trying to get home for Christmas. (Source: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55432058)
Em777 · 23/12/2020 23:06

@OllyBJolly

My brother was stuck in Morocco (with many Brits) during first lockdown. He was very well looked after by the Moroccan authorities while the UK govt tried to repatriate them. (4 weeks - not a complaint just reinforcing the hospitality he enjoyed at expense of another country).
The British were, in general, comparatively slow to organise repatriation of their citizens back in Feb/March.
WhereverIGoddamnLike · 23/12/2020 23:06

@titchy

I dont think anyrbung of the sort. I'm not the one asking. I think it's fairly obvious why we should and need to be helping them.

But the OP is asking, and instead if explaining it to her people are saying "omg, are you horrible, of course we should help". She didnt say that we shouldn't, she was just wondering why their own counties arent when the UK repatriate their own etc.

EileenGC · 23/12/2020 23:06

France could have let them into the country and undertaken the testing and isolation themselves.

When I travel from country A to country B and country B demands a negative test to enter its territory, it's the responsibility of country A to provide me with testing facilities and the option to take this test and receive the results before I even leave my house to go to the airport.

There is no point in letting all the drivers through, to then have X% of them test positive after they've crossed, and have to organise their isolations and track and trace from a different country. Mind you, I think all those drivers are praying they can be on French soil soon, where they can perhaps access the toilets and buy food a bit more easily.

Original poster
Gleps · 23/12/2020 23:07

@PurplePansy05 it’s a shame you have to be so rude, your second post has some quite good points that I’d have liked to discuss but I’m not willing to engage with you any further. I posted here to get a better understanding, not to be ridiculed by a silly keyboard warrior.

To those saying if it was the other way round do I think we would help get people back from France. Then yes, I genuinely do. I’m sure our government would have faced such a grilling that we’d have sent people over to undertake rapid testing. Is this where I’m going wrong, do you not agree with this?

And to the people saying the ok have scares the rest of the world and sprung it on them. What other choice did they have? Are you saying they should have down played it or kept it a secret?

OP posts:
PurplePansy05 · 23/12/2020 23:07

@MyLifeNow20

I dont understand this. Why cant they turn their lorries around and go home? Cant the police control the motorway so they can
I didn't realise lorries were amphibious and had built in invisibility cloaks to pass the border unnoticed. How very bondesque!
bornatXmastobequiet · 23/12/2020 23:07

Our Government shouted out that we had a MUTANT VIRUS, put London and most of the South East into Tier 4 and told people they shouldn’t travel in or out of it. Unsurprisingly, the French closed their border until such time as they could ensure people entering were not infected.
So lots of people of all nationalities, are stuck. Wonderfully, charitable and religious groups as well as independent takeaway businesses and individuals are trying to help and support those who are stranded, days before Christmas, and unlikely to get home to spend Christmas with their families, poor things. I believe official help is now being provided. Of course it’s incumbent on us, as the host country, out of simple human decency, to do this. How can you possibly think otherwise?

Heartlantern2 · 23/12/2020 23:09

France closed the border and should be sending aid and help to those stranded. He is a Moran for not doing that!!

We will aid instead, like we are doing. We shouldn’t have too, but that’s not really the point, the point is people need help and if they won’t do it we will just have too.

PerhapsOverlyWorried · 23/12/2020 23:10

What is actually being done by the U.K. government to help the lorry drivers? As far as I can see, communities and charities have attempted to help them with food etc, but surely this should have been up to the government? To ensure that humans who are stranded in our country through no fault of their own are sheltered, fed and have access to bathrooms and clean running water? As far as I can see, the way the U.K. (as in the government) has reacted to this shamefully. U.K. communities and charities however have reacted as they always have, with love and care. It’s extremely sad that it won’t be the U.K. citizens kindness that’s remembered but it’s governments icy indifference.

KittyWindbag · 23/12/2020 23:11

They’re mostly not French they’ll be from all over Europe.

PurplePansy05 · 23/12/2020 23:13

OP, you get the responses your posts deserve. I see I hit the nail on the head and you're wound up as a result. So be it, you can cover up your ignorance as much as you wish and continue to pretend your posts were aimed at triggering a sensible discussion, but no, they were not, and they still aren't.

Motorina · 23/12/2020 23:14

To those saying we would send health care workers to Calais to test people there: we couldn't. We can't. The reality is clinicians have to be registered in the country they work in. French doctors and nurses can come here, apply to the GMC or NMC, register and work. Likewise (until 31st Dec!) our clinicians can apply for registration and work there. But it's not an overnight process.

I know less about policing, but I rather assume the same applies there. I would be astonished if our police could go and start policing in Calais, in the same way you'd never find a Gendarme directing traffic in Trafalgar Square.

These things really do need to be handled by the people on the ground in that country.

I'm sure if the border were closed long term, then European countries would arrange to repatriate their citizens. But noone - least of all us - wants a longterm border closure.

donewithitalltodayandxmas · 23/12/2020 23:14

Actually some of the drivers were complaining that they felt their government should be helping
We would if our drivers were stick on the other side

Mamamia456 · 23/12/2020 23:15

It's not just here, there will be lorry drivers stuck in Calais waiting to come back to the UK. I would hope they are being provided with food and drink as well. It's the right thing to do.

crackofdoom · 23/12/2020 23:15

What is actually being done by the U.K. government to help the lorry drivers?

To be fair, local government seems to have stepped up- there are reports of Kent County Council distributing food.

notimagain · 23/12/2020 23:16

If we imposed a travel ban though and it was known we had a large number of hauliers who were 'stuck', I would expect us to provide tests and perhaps some manpower, because it would be our decision causing it, not the host country.

A lot of this goes back to that thing called sovereignty, that thing the UK always had even when in the EU....

I'm trying to imagine the political response from Whitehall if Mr Macron suggested that French Sapeur Pompiers (Fire brigade/ambulance service equivalent) and Gendarmes (a branch of the French armed forces) were sent into Kent to help assist with testing and perhaps crowd control with the lorry drivers..the Daily Mail headlines would be priceless..

As some upthread has said you'd expect some planning and allocation of resources to have gone to cater on for mass disruption at the Channel Ports due to weather, e.g. snow and certainly as we run up to first of Jan I would have thought everything would have been in place "just in case" there was any disruption due to us exiting transition..

titchy · 23/12/2020 23:16

To those saying if it was the other way round do I think we would help get people back from France.

But we wouldn't - we've just shut the border to South Africans. No one is clamouring that we should be responsible for getting Irish citizens back from SA via the UK Confused People in SA have to sort out the testing and compliance we have asked for.

TuxedoPanther · 23/12/2020 23:17

Fucking hell.

LeGrandBleu · 23/12/2020 23:17

@Gleps a truck driver won't abandon his truck. Some drive company's truck but other own it and it is their bread and butter. No way would they leave it behind without a certain date in which to collect it.

You complete lack the understanding of non interference and non intervention in internal affairs. If UK wants help, it needs to ask for it. UK only asked for the ban to be removed, not for assistance. You can be certain that diplomatic channels are at work, you just don't understand how governments work and what can and can't be done.

There are rules that govern International relations. You can't just jump in and say, let me deal with this since you seem so incompetent.

titchy · 23/12/2020 23:18

@donewithitalltodayandxmas

Actually some of the drivers were complaining that they felt their government should be helping We would if our drivers were stick on the other side
But we're not. We have British drivers stuck in France - the French are providing the pit stops, toilets, water etc.
donewithitalltodayandxmas · 23/12/2020 23:20

Its depressing that so many people hate this country that live here
Yes we have shut our borders to sa but we always work on getting our citizens back
As much as we should help so should france as he has ditched his citizens and some were not happy
This strain could if come from anywhere and I though had been found in europe
All this macron is showing what he can do , he can't just do this anytime though even if we are under wto rules , he can't just shut border without a good reason just to teach us a lesson
I think he prob did right thing shutting but france are equally responsible for those drivers many of then which are their citizens

CaptainSandy · 23/12/2020 23:21

It's apparent from these threads that some people see the world as Britian (or perhaps England) and not-Britain, some amorphous other where the foreigners live and which is defined by being not-us.

Fauvist · 23/12/2020 23:21

@Gleps

I’m not a monster and I’m not saying we shouldn’t be looking after them. I actually tried to keep my opinion out of the question to gain facts rather than judgement.

I don’t get why we had an obligation to our nationals who were stuck in other countries. Yet France don’t seem to have any obligations to their nationals stuck in another country.

This is, I'm sorry to say, genuinely idiotic. What makes you think they are all French? They are from all over Europe.