Many thousands of people were forced to wait in Dover for another day, after Suella Braverman denied post Brexit checks.
P&O Ferries stated on Sunday afternoon, despite additional sailings being in place on Saturday that coaches arriving at cruise terminal 1, would likely have to wait over 10 hours.
Parents and angry customers of schoolchildren who were delayed, and some of them had to cancel their school trips as a consequence, bombarded the port and ferry companies with messages via social media.
Braverman, despite being under pressure from the government, rejected the notion that they were connected to Brexit. However, political opponents said she was out-of-touch with reality.
On Sunday, Sky News’s Sophy Ridge interviewed the home secretary. She said that operations at France’s border have been “very good” ever since Britain left the EU.Braverman said, “I don’t believe it’s fair that we can say that Brexit has had an adverse effect on this.” “We’ve had many years since we left the European Union, and there have been, on average, very good operations at the border.
“At times when there’s a lot of pressure crossing Channel, whether tunnel or ferry, then I believe there’s always going be a backup. I urge everyone to be patient as the ferry companies sort through the backlog.
Braverman later denied that Dover’s situation would repeat itself, and blamed the “bad weather”.
Her comments attracted both ridicule and ire. Alistair Carmichael (Liberal Democrats’ home affairs spokesperson), stated that these comments showed Suella Brverman is completely denial about the effect of the Conservative government’s failed deal with Europe on our borders. It is always someone else’s fault for Conservative ministers such as Braverman.
Ministers refuse to move a finger while businesses and travelers are enslaved in red tape. This shows that the Conservative party is out-of-touch, out of excuses, and should be removed from power.
Former Conservative cabinet minister David Gauke was stripped of the Tory whip because he rebelled in a Brexit vote. He tweeted: “If the EU were our home, the French wouldn’t need to perform individual passport checks. The process at Dover would be faster if there were no individual passport checks. Brexit is partly responsible for the Dover queues. Not a contentious point, surely?”
Caroline Lucas, Green party MP, said Braverman was “on another planet as normal”. She stated that Braverman’s comments about no Brexit link were contradicted by the comments made by the home secretary. Doug Bannister, a former home secretary, acknowledged that Brexit had effected longer processing times at border.On Sunday, the Port of Dover said the continuing situation had been caused by a mix of lengthy immigration processes at the border and sheer volume of traffic, as it apologised to customers. Its Twitter account retweeted a post by P&O Ferries that said that coaches arriving at cruise terminal 1 would have to wait approximately four hours to complete an advanced passenger information border check and then face a further wait of six plus hours in the buffer zone before boarding a ferry.
Nicola Eslick (51), from Brighton stated that her son’s school skiing trip to Italy was cancelled after the coach had waited all night. She expressed her sadness for her son, 14, as it was his first chance to go on a ski trip like this because of Covid. It was also the last time he had such an opportunity before he began GCSEs. Eslick stated, “I’m really mad at the authorities in control of the borders.”
Other parents sent messages to the port, P&O Ferries, and DFDS to express their concern about children who were left on coaches for over 12 hours without food, water, or sanitation. Some complained that delays were downplayed, and that coaches transporting children weren’t being given the proper priority.
Lisa Nandy (shadow levelling up secretary) put the delays down to how the government handled the Brexit challenges rather than Brexit itself. Sky News’ Lisa Nandy stated that the government knew for a long time that additional paperwork checks needed to be handled.
“It doesn’t matter if we leave the European Union. We left with a government that promised big but never delivered.