Dover hell ‘is revenge for Brexit’
HUNDREDS of thousands of holidaymakers face chaos for weeks as they try to reach the continent through Britain’s busiest port.
For the second day running, motorists endured snail’s-pace queues in the heat after French officials imposed tighter passport checks at Dover following the Nice terror attack. But France failed to provide enough personnel, triggering claims that Paris is paying Britain back for Brexit.
In the early hours of Saturday morning, just three of seven passport booths were open. The shambles included only one official to check coaches – and he took 40 minutes per vehicle.
A Kent Police spokesman said: “A large volume of traffic is anticipated over the next few days. This, together with heightened security checks by the French authorities, could mean delays over the next few days.” Later police said delays could continue “over the next few weeks”.
Backlash
Highways England warned of problems stretching into next weekend, as holidaymakers dash to the sun. It was using electronic signs as far north as the Midlands to warn motorists of delays in Dover.
The Home Office yesterday drafted in UK Border Force officials to help Dover-based officials of the French passport agency.
And yesterday morning the French officials simply waved cars through – raising doubts about their claims they were cracking down on terror.
Yesterday morning Kent Police said motorists faced delays of about 10 hours on the A20, with 12 miles of queuing traffic back to junction 11 of the M20 at Hythe.
Motorists trapped in the queues claimed they were political pawns in a French backlash against Brexit.
On social media one claimed the queues were a “Brexit hate crime” while another said it was “payback” from France for the anti-EU vote. But Patrick McLoughlin, Tory chairman and former transport secretary, dismissed the claim.
Among the victims of the delays was multiple sclerosis sufferer Tanya Cudworth, 50, from Derby, who underwent a 20-hour ordeal in Kent on her way to Frankfurt for stem-cell treatment that is unavailable on the NHS.
Ms Cudworth, travelling with her partner Steve Deene, 53, described the experience as “absolutely horrendous”.
COULD the French really be so petty, so spiteful, so vindictive that they would deliberately make life hard for thousands of British holidaymakers as a way of getting their own back over our liberating Brexit vote? It would be no surprise because France has a shameful history of inflicting chaos on us.
Tanker drivers blockading fuel supplies at the French Channel ports, farmers burning lorries loaded with our lamb, air-traffic controllers wreaking havoc on holiday flights, train drivers going on strike, you name it, Britons have suffered from The French Way.
Now an estimated 250,000 Brits are delayed for 10 hours or more trying to get through grossly understaffed French passport checks at Dover – because the French claim they have had to step up security because of recent terrorist outrages.
That is nonsense, of course. Did the terrorists in Nice and Paris come from the UK? No, we have a border that deters them, unlike the rest of the EU where it’s an open house.
It was all too clear when Prime Minister Theresa May met President François Hollande last week that France is bitter that we have had the temerity to expose the EU as a millstone we can do without.
At least the French president got one thing right: the sooner we are out, the better. Thousands of hot, tired and angry holidaymakers feel the same way about those awful queues.