Thousands of Britons queue for hours to get to France. Once again it shows that problems on the island can have many causes, but Brexit usually makes things worse.
A lot of patience was required at the Port of Dover this weekend (picture taken on Saturday 23rd July).
Lots of traffic jams at the beginning of the holiday are normal, but this one is special. Thousands of Brits have been stuck in miles-long queues of cars since Friday, some for more than ten hours. The deadlock prevails in the south-east of England, at the entrance to the ferry port of Dover and the Eurotunnel car train at Folkestone. The ferry port temporarily declared a state of emergency. The car transport was declared a “holiday hell hotspot” by the AA Automobile Association on Sunday.
The BBC has set up a live blog in which, among other things, the father of three, Manesh Luthra, has his say. At 4am on Saturday morning, the family drove from Essex, north east London. She reached the Eurotunnel terminal at 5:45 am. They had booked the train for the half-hour trip under the English Channel for 7:50 am. Instead they were stuck. “We only moved a few meters in several hours and wanted to give up several times,” Luthra told the BBC. There was no information, no support, no supply. The family only arrived in France at 10 p.m. on Saturday evening.
A column of 320 kilometers
But not only passenger cars are stuck in traffic jams. Trucks lined the streets for miles. Some motorways were converted into parking spaces where 600 trucks had to wait on Sunday to continue their journey. The closures increased the chaos for passenger cars on the remaining expressways. The port of Dover announced on Sunday afternoon that it had handled 72,000 passengers so far this weekend, which corresponds to a traffic column of more than 320 kilometers.
The discussion about the causes keeps the British media and politicians in suspense. It was known that there would be a lot going on this weekend: the school holidays started in many places last week. And for the first time in two summers, Brits, who have often been held back by coronavirus restrictions at home and abroad, are free to leave the island for the most important holiday of the year.
At the same time, the alternatives are confused. Cancellations, delays and suitcase chaos have hit British aviation particularly hard in an international comparison. National train services are being severely impacted not only by the labor shortage, but also by strikes and the ongoing heat wave. Traveling to the continent in your own car seems like a good idea – at least until you get close to the coast.
Brexit is discussed immediately
As with many British problems, a debate has erupted over whether Brexit is to blame for the mess. The new travel regime, which has been in force since the beginning of 2021 with the end of the EU free movement of people, is now being put to the test on a large scale for the first time.
The usual reflexes work reliably: the conservative British government blamed the main blame for the chaos on the French border police. Their officials are also on duty in Dover and are still on British soil checking the papers of travelers who are making their way through the English Channel. In turn, British officers are stationed in Calais – for example to intercept illegal immigrants before they arrive on the island (a key aim of incumbent Prime Minister Boris Johnson).
For reasons that are not known, not as many French border guards have been deployed in Dover in the past few days as planned. In any case, there are only nine checkpoints for exits. However, these bottlenecks apparently only occurred for a short time and cannot explain the full extent of the traffic jam.
In addition, Brexit advocates argue that there were sometimes queues before the EU exit, which is true, and that even before Brexit, ID checks were standard practice. That’s also true, because Great Britain was never part of the Schengen area, unlike Switzerland, for example.
Every check takes longer – and that’s getting worse
However, Brexit has an effect that exacerbates the current problems: each border control now takes longer than before. This applies to a considerable extent to the movement of goods and thus to truck traffic, but also to passenger traffic. Now that the UK is a third country, Britons are subject to more thorough screening and have their passports stamped as there is a maximum length of stay in the EU. They may also have to disclose their travel plans or prove that they have enough money to travel. The English Channel is now an external EU border.
Even if the full register is by no means drawn out at every check, the processing time increases. To illustrate: While it previously took an average of 20 seconds per person, it may now be 40 seconds. That’s a doubling that adds up significantly with a rush of thousands of travelers. In addition, the capacities of the border guard have not grown to the same extent. In Dover, this is also limited by the spatial conditions: Surrounded by cliffs, there is little space.
For the movement of goods, the government therefore set up collection points in the hinterland before Brexit, where the trucks and the extensive freight documents that became necessary after leaving the EU internal market are checked. True, these centers do not function smoothly. But maybe some car drivers now wish they existed for passenger transport too.