Unions, port officers and the French authorities blamed Brexit on Saturday (23 July) as 1000’s of holidaymakers confronted lengthy delays attempting to achieve Europe through the English Channel port of Dover.
However UK Overseas Secretary Liz Truss laid the blame squarely on Paris, telling her French counterpart Catherine Colonna that “the French authorities haven’t put sufficient folks on the border.”
The scenario has added to the dangerous blood between London and Paris within the wake of Brexit, scotching hopes of a reset after Boris Johnson stated earlier this month he was stepping down as premier.
“We have to see motion from them (the French) to resolve the horrible scenario which travellers, together with households, are dealing with,” stated Truss, who’s at the moment combating to succeed Johnson as prime minister.
However Paris has rejected claims that the gridlock was attributable to under-staffing and Colonna in her tweet took a extra sanguine view of their dialog, describing the talks as “good” and welcoming the “cooperation” to scale back the delays.
Colonna additionally underlined the “want to enhance amenities on the Port of Dover.”
Tweeting the entrance web page of Britain’s right-wing Day by day Telegraph which had the headline “Truss tells France to repair vacation chaos”, France’s Transport Minister Clement Beaune stated the French authorities had been “mobilised” to ease motion.
However in a jab at London, the previous Europe minister added: “France shouldn’t be answerable for Brexit”.
‘Extra checks than earlier than’
Border checks and additional paperwork for freight visitors had been reintroduced when Britain left the European Union final yr, ending free motion for folks 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 because the lifting of all Covid restrictions.
French lawmaker Pierre-Henri Dumont, whose constituency consists of the French Channel port of Calais, referred to as the journey chaos “an aftermath of Brexit”.
“We have now to run extra checks than earlier than,” he informed BBC tv, predicting it might occur once more.
Port of Dover chief govt Doug Bannister initially blamed an absence 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 instances” post-Brexit. The port was assured of dealing with the demand at peak intervals, he added.
Brexit figurehead 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 turning into prime minister, he has discovered that harder, with document numbers of migrants crossing from northern France in small boats.
Lucy Moreton, from the ISU union that represents borders, immigration and customs workers, stated the tailbacks had been a “fairly predictable” results of Brexit.
“That is the time that it’s chosen to chunk,” she informed the BBC.
Third nation
Passengers need to 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 stated greater than 17,000 passengers had already gone by way of.
Bannister stated some 8,500 autos had left the port on Friday, with about 10,000 anticipated on Saturday.
Queues for the port snaked by way 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 the direction of Dover.
That included closing components of the motorway to non-freight visitors and diverting vehicles in the direction of the port and the Eurotunnel by different routes.
The prefect of the Hauts-de-France area Georges-Francois Leclerc stated France had “accomplished its job” by rising 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.
All French workers had been in place at 9:45 am (0845 GMT) as an alternative of 8:30 am, the prefect informed reporters in Lille.
“Who would have thought that as a result of the French reinforcements had been an hour late that it might derail the entire system?” he added.
“Final yr there was Covid. We’re discovering out about Brexit” and its influence on peak intervals.
“The world has modified. The UK is now a 3rd nation to the EU”, which implies way more time-consuming checks.
