UK Overseas Secretary Liz Truss laid the blame squarely on Paris, insisting: “The French authorities haven’t put sufficient individuals on the border.”

However officers on the opposite facet of the Channel rejected claims that the gridlock was brought on by under-staffing.

Border checks and further paperwork for freight visitors had been reintroduced when Britain left the European Union final yr, ending free motion for individuals and items within the bloc.

Bottlenecks of lorries at Dover have been seen since then however this summer season is the primary with unrestricted journey for the general public for the reason that lifting of all Covid restrictions.

French lawmaker Pierre-Henri Dumont, whose constituency contains the French Channel port of Calais, referred to as the journey chaos “an aftermath of Brexit”.

“Now we have to run extra checks than earlier than,” he advised BBC tv, predicting it could occur once more.

Port of Dover chief government Doug Bannister initially blamed a scarcity of French border company workers for the logjam which noticed some holidaymakers wait six hours or longer to catch their ferries.

However he conceded there have been now “elevated transaction occasions” post-Brexit. The port was assured of dealing with the demand at peak intervals, he added.

Brexit figurehead Boris Johnson made “taking again management” of UK borders a rallying name for his “go away” marketing campaign within the 2016 vote on EU membership.

Since changing into prime minister, he has discovered that tougher, with report numbers of migrants crossing from northern France in small boats.

The chief of Kent County Council, Roger Gough, estimated that 3,000 lorries had been ready to get to the port on Saturday morning.

Kent Police mentioned motorists ought to nonetheless count on “important delays”.

Lucy Moreton, from the ISU union that represents borders, immigration and customs workers, mentioned the tailbacks had been a “moderately predictable” results of Brexit.

“That is the time that it’s chosen to chunk,” she advised the BBC.

– Third nation –

Passengers should undergo each UK and French border checks at Dover earlier than boarding ferries to northern France.

By 12:45 pm (1145 GMT), the Port of Dover mentioned greater than 17,000 passengers had already gone by means of.

Bannister mentioned some 8,500 autos had left the port on Friday, with about 10,000 anticipated on Saturday.

Queues for the port snaked by means of Dover and surrounding roads, stretching kilometres (miles), with lorries backed up the M20 motorway resulting in the city.

A visitors administration system was rolled out on the M20 to handle the excessive quantity of lorries backed up in direction of Dover.

That included closing elements of the motorway to non-freight visitors and diverting vehicles in direction of the port and the Eurotunnel by different routes.

Eurotunnel mentioned its practice shuttle providers for autos between close by Folkestone and Coquelles in northern France had been two hours not on time.

The prefect of the Hauts-de-France area Georges-Francois Leclerc mentioned France had “finished its job” by growing its border workers in Dover from 120 to 200.

He blamed the visitors jams on an accident on the M20 on Friday for the late arrival of French border company workers at their posts in Dover.

However he recommended the port itself had not finished sufficient to deal with the elevated visitors, which usually jumps from 5,000 to 10,000 autos each day throughout the busy summer season.

All French workers had been in place at 9:45 am (0845 GMT) as a substitute of 8:30 am, the prefect advised reporters in Lille.

“Who would have thought that as a result of the French reinforcements had been an hour late that it could derail the entire system?” he added.

“Final yr there was Covid. We’re discovering out about Brexit” and its impression on peak intervals.

“The world has modified. The UK is now a 3rd nation to the EU”, which suggests rather more time-consuming checks.

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