The now-enacted will of (some of) the people

[Mozzavfc]

14 minutes ago, ender4 said:

Yes i believe they do. Not sure why, but don't the British also have border control in France as well.

The French check passports in England, and we check passports in France. I think the idea is to do the checks before you get on the ferry to speed up disembarkment as the checks are already done

[Genie]

14 minutes ago, Chindie said:

If only all of this was foreseeable.

Shows what a massive bullshitter JRM was when saying “any delays will be in Calais”. 
If France are checking passports and credentials here then the delays will be here.

We have the power to wave people through from Calais into the UK if we want, but not the other way.

[Lichfield Dean]

The Brexiter response to all this is, "We weren't in Shengen before and we're not now."

Could anybody with some knowledge around this explain what has changed with regards to passport checks as a result?

 

[Davkaus]

1 minute ago, Lichfield Dean said:

The Brexiter response to all this is, "We weren't in Shengen before and we're not now."

Could anybody with some knowledge around this explain what has changed with regards to passport checks as a result?

 

We weren't in Schengen, but as we were in the EU, we were still allowed to spend as much time on the continent as we liked. All that needed to be done was checking that the passport holder is the person in front of them. Now, we have to have our passports stamped so that they can track how much time individuals spend in the Schengen area. There's a 90 day limit in any 180 day area, and we require a visa for staying any longer than that - but even if you're only going there for a day, they need to check your passport, stamp it, and check the previous visits plus your intended stay don't total more than 90 days.

[ml1dch]

4 minutes ago, Lichfield Dean said:

The Brexiter response to all this is, "We weren't in Shengen before and we're not now."

Could anybody with some knowledge around this explain what has changed with regards to passport checks as a result?

 

Before, you needed to have a valid passport to enter the Schengen area. So the check was basically "is this passport valid and being presented by the person who owns it?". There were no other restrictions on UK citizens moving around that area.

Now, UK citizens cannot spend more than 90 of every 180 days in the Schengen area. So at the bare minimum, an entry stamp is required so that can be checked if necessary. 

The French authorities are well within their rights to check every page of every passport for prior entry / exit stamps to ensure this 90 day law isn't being breached. Good thing they're not bothering or all this would even worse.

 

[Davkaus]

2 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

 

The French authorities are well within their rights to check every page of every passport for prior entry / exit stamps to ensure this 90 day law isn't being breached. Good thing they're not bothering or all this would even worse.

 

Is this true? I thought they were obligated, and haven't seen any reports that they're skipping checks. Just waving people through from a third country is a breach of their duty to other EU members. 

[Genie]

4 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

The French authorities are well within their rights to check every page of every passport for prior entry / exit stamps to ensure this 90 day law isn't being breached. Good thing they're not bothering or all this would even worse.

They could also be asking for proof anyone entering France has a return ticket booked, and that they have enough money for their stay (€85 a day I think).

They’re doing us a favour not insisting on these checks at the moment.

[Lichfield Dean]

Cheers guys, as I thought. Using the Shengen thing is a deflection, because the EU also had (in some ways overlapping) rules about allowing citizens frictionless entry at borders.

The issue now is that we are in NEITHER the EU or Shengen.

[ml1dch]

8 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

Is this true? I thought they were obligated, and haven't seen any reports that they're skipping checks. Just waving people through from a third country is a breach of their duty to other EU members. 

As @Geniesays.

There are a whole range of things they could ask anyone to demonstrate if they wanted to play silly buggers.

They're not waving people through, they're just choosing to do the minimum required, because there's no reason to be dicks about it. But even the bare minimum is going to take longer than it used to. 

[NurembergVillan]

2 hours ago, Mozzavfc said:

The French check passports in England, and we check passports in France. I think the idea is to do the checks before you get on the ferry to speed up disembarkment as the checks are already done

Correct.  If there was a 5 mile queue of British vehicles at Calais, about 3 miles of it would be in the sea.

[MessiWillSignForVilla]

I'd propose a slight amendment to the title of the article on their site;

"British Tourist's fury as they discover consequences of own actions"

[Davkaus]

I've had it with these lefty, remoaning Daily Mail journalists, don't they know that EU countries have no control over their borders.

[Straggler]

The French have a responsibility to the rest of Europe as they have the boarder all these non EU citizens (Brits) are crossing to get into the EU.  We have 100% forced them to do additional checks, not just for the French, but as a responsible member of the EU.  This one was easy to see pre Brexit, all you had to do is look at what non EU members had to do to travel into the EU.  But once again the argument "no, that won't happen to us" won again. 

It seems the argument now, that it wasn't Brexit that caused this, seems to be doing pretty well too.  You have to do some pretty awesome mental gymnastics to go with that logic, but it seems we are getting world-class at deluding ourselves.  So predictable and so stupid. 

Actually, that could be the tag line for Brexit as a process "so predictable and so stupid". 

We want to take back control of our borders!  How dare the French control their own borders!  Anyone still peddling Brexit as anything other than an unworkable mess should be ostracized from any responsible position due to a catastrophic lack of judgement. 

[Genie]

There’s also the contradiction in thinking that I don’t think the classic Brexiteer realises.

1) We want to be out, we don’t want EU rules or influence over us.

2) We don’t to do a deal, hard brexit, cut all ties.

3) We don’t expect how we travel, work, trade or live in the EU to be negatively impacted. 

They are completely incompatible. We could never have a hard Brexit, and also a special arrangement with the EU that maintains some/all of the benefits of membership.

[Chindie]

We've been through all of this.

An island nation doesn't have to be reliant on its nearest neighbours to trade, and it's not like everywhere else on the planet everyone trades most with their closest neighbours anyway. The internet means we'll trade everything online.

Besides, having the largest economic trading block on the planet a stones throw away isn't a big deal when we can agree some little deals with countries we do limited trade with and will be unlikely to grow significantly due to geography and need.

Besides having an economy that has spent 40 years radically changing to a basis reliant on frictionless nearby trade and entry level service workers on demand isn't going to be hampered by pulling the plug on it overnight.

...

Imbeciles.

[Risso]

6 hours ago, ml1dch said:

Quite. To put six more booths in would require six roads to allow people to drive to the booths.

That's around the equivalent of dumping a couple of motorways in the middle of an already-busy small town.

Well that's not true is it? The M6 Toll road isn't a 10 lane motorway. It just widens out for the area of the booths of which there must be 10-12, people go through, then merge back in once they have.

[bickster]

You can have as many toll booths as you want but you'll only be able to open the ones you have enough staff for

The French have no obligation under the withdrawal agreement to provide X number of staff (You know the magnificently negotiated withdrawal agreement that was worked on slavishly for years)

You know the saying.... the devil is in the detail, well this government isn't really any good at details

The only way to solve this issue is for us to negotiate with France for them to send more staff and that will obviously come at a cost.

 

[blandy]

4 minutes ago, Risso said:

Well that's not true is it? The M6 Toll road isn't a 10 lane motorway. It just widens out for the area of the booths of which there must be 10-12, people go through, then merge back in once they have.

Zackly. Dover port authority wanted to put 6 (I think it was) extra checkpoints in, and they wouldn't have asked to do that if it wouldn't make any difference. The flow rate of cars through the checks will always be determined by the slowest factor, and at the weekend it was the gates themselves (some were not even manned to start with). It's true that if you put more and more and more gates in, eventually the road capacity will be the limiting factor, but it's not yet, and wouldn't be with 6 extra gates. I guess the problem as well is the backlog of traffic - the period of maximum demand just went on and on, rather than dissipating  quickly.

[tinker]

My guess is France haven't increased their immigration staff from pre Brexit and this is the fall out. Add to that the fact that the French seem to have a work to rule going on at the moment. 

[Risso]

2 hours ago, Straggler said:

The French have a responsibility to the rest of Europe as they have the boarder all these non EU citizens (Brits) are crossing to get into the EU.  We have 100% forced them to do additional checks, not just for the French, but as a responsible member of the EU.  This one was easy to see pre Brexit, all you had to do is look at what non EU members had to do to travel into the EU.  But once again the argument "no, that won't happen to us" won again. 

It seems the argument now, that it wasn't Brexit that caused this, seems to be doing pretty well too.  You have to do some pretty awesome mental gymnastics to go with that logic, but it seems we are getting world-class at deluding ourselves.  So predictable and so stupid. 

Actually, that could be the tag line for Brexit as a process "so predictable and so stupid". 

We want to take back control of our borders!  How dare the French control their own borders!  Anyone still peddling Brexit as anything other than an unworkable mess should be ostracized from any responsible position due to a catastrophic lack of judgement. 

It was the busiest get away for years, with the schools having broken up and lots more trips to Europe being booked from cancelled trips during the pandemic. The queues were caused by a) lots of people all heading to Europe at the same time, b) insufficient existing infrastructure, and especially c) not nearly enough staff. The time it takes to stamp a passport having given it a cursory glance is hardly anything more than just giving it a cursory glance in the first place, if at all.