Port of Dover: Post-Brexit travel laws will ‘mimic Cold War regulations’

We don’t remember seeing this one splashed across the side of a bus. With the EU set to toughen-up its post-Brexit borders laws, travellers coming from the UK are likely to face hellish delays and long queues as they attempt to cross the Channel.

And, as travel expert Simon Calder wrote in The Independent, some of these new regulations will mirror what we saw during the Cold War.

‘Cold War travel’ becomes the latest Brexit consequence

From November, British citizens travelling onwards to France from Dover will be processed in a more stringent manner. French border officials will soon be required to take biometrics from those planning to enter the EU nation, which includes fingerprinting and facial scanning.

Cars make up a huge bulk of holidaymakers looking to visit the continent. Those arriving by this form of transport will now face a more intense round of scrutiny from border guards. Non-commercial passenger vehicles will be directed east, to wait under ‘a large canopy’.

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Coaches and buses, however, will face an entirely different process under the EU’s Entry and Exit System (EES). As Calder explains, coaches will be sent to the west of the docks, and ‘sealed’ by security officials once processing has been complete – as once seen in West Germany.

“Coach passengers will be processed at the Western Docks on the other side of Dover. Each coach will be sealed and drive through Dover, with those on board effectively in French territory. The same technique was used in West Germany and West Berlin in the Cold War.” | Simon Calder

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The news comes as Doug Bannister, CEO of the Port of Dover, also warned that the docks will ‘not be able to cope’ with full-flows of summer traffic after Easter next year, while these border checks remain in place. Needless to say, this rise in red tape has angered social media users.

Vote Leave, a campaign run on the promise of the UK increasing its border security, has now resulted in Brits getting a front-row seat to watch how effectively the EU can manage its own in-flows. Author Edwin Hayward, a vocal critic of Brexit, has hit-out at the ‘new iron curtain’:

“This is the perfect metaphor for Brexit and its new iron curtain. There’s nothing cheerier than beginning your holiday in a sealed bus and being forbidden from disembarking, because it would break immigration protocols.” | Edwin Hayward