Here's a helpful little thread I found on twitter explaining why the Dover queues are down to brexit: Going to do some sums for you. If, before brexit, 12 booths could each wave a UK car thru in 20 seconds, you would flow 36 cars a minute. If it takes 2 minutes to check/stamp passports, you can flow 6 cars a minute. Ok if only 4 or 6 are manned, that makes it worse, but... even if all stations are open, and cars coming down the M20 one every 3 seconds (conservative) -ie 20 a minute - every minute 14 cars will be added to the queue. After 1 hour that's 840 cars. Somebody at the back of THAT queue can expect to wait 140 minutes to get to the front. Of course if you are unlucky to be joining the back of the queue after it has been growing for 3 hours and contains 2520 cars, your wait time will be 7 hours.
MP for Dover Natalie (my husband’s a sex offender, so let me take over) Elphicke has demanded ‘The French’ apologise to the UK for delays.
Interesting that you've managed to get "Operation Stack" mentioned in your scan. The bit of Kent I'm a very frequent visitor to, approximately 'Thanet' (a region from Whitstable on the NE Kent coast down to Deal - I rarely get as far as Dover) usually means driving via the A2/M2 and A299 so I rarely see "Operation Brock" in action but lots and lots of signs for "Operation Stack". Judging by the signs, when the lorry queues get so bad that they're diverted from travelling to Dover to the great White Elephant of Manston Airport?
u got her name rong m8 its Natalie "my husband’s possibly going to court, so let me take over otherwise he'll stand as an independent split the Brexit looney vote here and loose the Tory's the seat" Elphicke. FWIW the Tories had the seafaring community (fishers and ferries) vote down there pretty much sewn into their pockets. A community that makes the 'views' of your average London cab driver seem like a sandal-wearing, vegan, folk-music loving Guardianista.
Tedious as ever. Re ideology. I do not consider the ideologies you describe to be the actual ones being held by the EU. They have more to do with fascistic corporatism, authoritarianism, socialism, for controlling the masses, and typical Communist elitism for the ruling class. If that is what you want, you are welcome to it. Note. I am not calling you anything here. I am suggesting that in my opinion, supporting those things, by proxy through the EU, is what you are doing. If you want to describe my opinion as fact, that is your right. But I do not make any such claims.
As the post pointed out, I am suggesting that it is you creating a promised saviour out of the EU, rather than me creating a saviour out of Brexit. I think that was quite clear, but sorry if you have a problem with nuance.
Who has ended freedom of movement? People are free to move around the world as they wish, provided they observe legal requirements. What we have rejected is the completely unmanaged and un monitored freedom of movement designed by the EU to mitigate serious problems presented by the Euro, such as no autonomy in nation states to ease financial catastrophy (see the PIGS EU members), by exploiting the lowest paid across Europe. I know you have never expressed any concern about such exploitation. It's one of the reasons I consider you a closet Gammon, as I have described on many occassions.
Leavers were fully aware that leaving the EU was intended give us independence from the EU. There were no other caveats or questions on the ballot.
Yes, your incessant wilful misrepresentation of what people actually say is tedious. I specifically stated my 5 points were not founded on any ideology; your continued infatuation with that clearly defines your position vis-a-vis whatever is better for the working classes. It would be extremely difficult to ascribe the term ‘fact’ to any of the rubbish you post.
So the conversations I have had with people who voted leave but are now saying they did not realise what the outcome would actually be are false? OK, I’ll just let them know they’re wrong because Archangel HH has decreed it shall I?
Should have traveled from Poole to Cherbourg . No problems. But never let facts get in the way of political dogma . Anywho Dover Calais problems all because of Putin\Trump\Brexit Twatter says so
Whether you are heading to the Med with the kids and a tent, or transporting our (diminishing) exports to the heartlands of Europe - it's unlikely that Poole/Cherbourg is the answer.......
Whose fault is it then? Corbyn? I suppose the queues are purely the fault of the champagne socialist all decided to visit France to stock up on champagne more since Jan 2021. Nothing else significant has happened since then.
Isn’t it no problems because the capacity on that route is piddly? Brexit problems are Brexit problems whether we have a pandemic or understaffed French borders, because that’s exactly what the previous arrangement was designed to avoid. Both the known and unknown.
I had a peek to see who was making a fool of themselves about cross channel ferries. I see it was Working Class Warrior. Poole Cherbourg does 1 or 2 boats per day. Dover does 2 ferries an hour, Folkestone 3 trains an hour. Poole could handle about 1% of what Dover/Calais does. And of course @iamofwatfordfc (he's not a real hamster) liked the comment. Of course.
There's no doubt that Brexit is the underlying cause as passports checks take longer now, but passport control should have been adequately staffed to cater for the extra time taken, given that volumes of passengers and shipping schedules are known well in advance, it's a fundamental failure of resource planning. Fail to plan, plan to fail. That being said, there were "technical issues" with respect to French transportation getting workers to passport control (French controlled at Dover), no doubt there are also staffing issues due to Covid layoffs and also current Covid levels and the crash on the M20 didn't help either. Lets face it Dover has problems pretty much every year, caused by some issue or another, these started well before Brexit and whilst the extra time taken has to be pointed at Brexit it's poor management and likely under resourcing to squeeze every penny possible off the transportation costs of the port that is the underlying cause. To be honest we should all be traveling far less anyway and I wonder if we need to look at separating freight and public transportation.
I’m not sure about this. I gather that lots of the passengers were cashing in vouchers issued during the pandemic, so numbers were higher than usual.
There is no doubt that Brexit is a major issue. As Simon Calder has said, if the French authorities apply their immigration rules to the letter they are supposed to: 1. check how long each passenger has been in the Schengen area in the last 180 days (maximum 90 allowed in any 180) 2. Stamp each 3 country person's passport. 3. Check each passenger is entitled to enter France (criminal record etc). 4. Check the passengers have sufficient funds to support themselves while in France. 5. Ensure each passenger has a return ticket. I suspect that, despite the criticism of our government and press, the French are actually cutting corners because the full checks would cause even greater delays The other major issue is simply the geography of the area. From what I understand the traffic is funnelled into a small area because there is no area to expand into. They are literally restricted by the cliffs. I think you are right. It's not just Brexit. There needs to be a rethink about how Dover can constantly work at maximum capacity. However I think we need to look at expanding other routes because Dover can never deal with the traffic it's being expected to process now. It has been a reoccurring issue for many years and Brexit has just made it a whole lot worse.
Correct. If Dover just about coped with maximum demand before new checks, with 12 lanes for checks, and checks now take 6 times as long, you would need 72 lanes and there is simply no room.
How can anyone listen to the idiots that led the leave campaign and still support them is beyond me! They were, at best, ignorant morons but I suspect they were just manipulative liars. The real shame is that they got what they wanted. Not just because Brexit was always a bad idea. But politicians have learned from this. They can lie to us. It can be shown to be a lie with irrefutable evidence such as this. Yet people will continue to support them if they wear the right coloured rosette. No wonder UK politics and politicians are in the state they are in.
Which people forget no matter how many lanes you have they've got to funnel back to at most a couple of lanes for the vehicles to get safely (and speedily) parked onto the big floaty thing. The quickest I've ever managed to get from entering the terminal to on the boat is about 30 mins: that was at stupid o'clock (vouchers everywhere around Thanet for £25 day return tickets) and without my, Kent licensed plate car, being 'pulled' by UK border officials (always on the return).
Interesting catching up on the UK news about the chaos at Dover and all the pro-Brexiters blaming the French. This isn't even a major story on French TV news. The French attitude is, "Why should we recruit more border officials to deal with another country's issue? It'll take as long as it takes." One local politician said that if the UK wants a speedier service the UK can pay for more officials. Kind of seems a fair point seeing as none of this bureaucracy was required until the UK demanded it. I flew into the south of France 10 days ago and sailed through with my Irish passport while those with British passports queued up to get theirs stamped. Still, I am sure this will be dismissed as a trifling difficulty that only affects the middle classes in their gas-guzzling SUVs (ignoring the fact that many less well off holidaymakers look forward to a trip across the channel and that it's not just quinoa-chomping suburbanites who are inconvenienced).
Because they want the money that tourism brings. If it's not sorted people will travel elsewhere. The UK government is not blameless of course, there are reports of requests for expansion which were turned down.
I don't think that word means what you think it means. You are like an algorithm, and you have no nuance what so ever. You were so affronted that the EU are not permitted to interfere with internal UK democracy that you continue to argue against that universally accepted piece of international and natural law, which is underwritten by the bloc's own legislation. For that example alone, it is clear that arguing with you is pointless, and that you are incapable of thinking for yourself, and so averse to appearing to be incorrect that you would rather just deny reality exists.
No. I am saying that you do not recognise the nuances in a person's way of coping with having voted for something very specific, leave or remain, when finding out that things can be tough after making such a monumental decision. The vote itself was in no way subtle or nuanced. It was leave or remain. People voted for one or the other. End of story.
You don't "have" to have your passport stamped when visiting Spain etc . Anyone who has been recently will be aware of the passport reading machines . You are advised to get your passport stamped if you are intending to stay longer than a week or so in order that you can prove when you entered the country should you have to . To claim that queues of Brits are waiting in line for a grumpy Spaniard to stamp their passport for their week in Torremalinos is not correct.
Not currently, but Spain is talking about imposing further checks on non-EU travellers – including proof of funds to cover the trip, proof of return ticket, proof of accommodation.
Which word? Irony or nuance? I am perfectly aware of the meaning of both, thanks. Of course, I cannot be sure that I know what you may mean by them. After all, they may fall under the remit of your statement that the definition of something has no relevance to how you decide to use it... I was never 'affronted' at all. I simply stated that I did not feel your interpretation of EU actions had actually been proven; you are adamant it had, and so we both decided not to exchange posts on that issue any more. I find it instructive that the only person on this forum who has felt constrained to state that 'arguing with me is pointless' is you. I have had numerous exchanges on here in various sections in which differing views have been expressed and no-one has ever felt our discussions have been pointless. However, were we to flip that around, I think the fact we would discover is that the number of people on here who find it utterly pointless even reading your posts, let alone debating with you, is legion.
