The I cant believe it’s not politics thread.

[z-layrex]

1 minute ago, Fazzer 7 said:

I don’t understand this mindset really. Why do that when Brits are going there to spend money in their economy. I can’t imagine we’re making it difficult for French or any other EU citizens coming here.  I cast my mind back to the French’s treatment of Liverpool fans at the CL final. They have form for this sort of thing. 

Because why should they have to spend money expanding their border operations based on our decisions?

[st albans fox]

sorry- Realised someone else has posted this earlier Sunday 
 

 

Edited 25 July 2022 by st albans fox

[Sampson]

35 minutes ago, Fazzer 7 said:

I don’t understand this mindset really. Why do that when Brits are going there to spend money in their economy. I can’t imagine we’re making it difficult for French or any other EU citizens coming here.  I cast my mind back to the French’s treatment of Liverpool fans at the CL final. They have form for this sort of thing. 

Huh? There was loads of articles about the UK making it difficult for EU citizens coming the other way and EU citizens being denied entry despite meeting the new post-Brexit rules or being grilled by border forces on visiting early on after Brexit - even with the heads of the EU telling the UK to calm down because we were enforcing Brexit rules too harshly. 

 

Also France is the most visited tourist nation in the world. UK citizens make up a fraction of that, they’re not going to miss us. I think many British people still have too lofty an idea of our country’s standing in the world.

Edited 24 July 2022 by Sampson

[weller54]

32 minutes ago, Fazzer 7 said:

I don’t understand this mindset really. Why do that when Brits are going there to spend money in their economy. I can’t imagine we’re making it difficult for French or any other EU citizens coming here.  I cast my mind back to the French’s treatment of Liverpool fans at the CL final. They have form for this sort of thing. 

I can't think of any reason why the French should hate the English so much!! 😂😂

[lgfualol]

Brexit's going well then

[kenny]

16 minutes ago, Sampson said:

Huh? There was loads of articles about the UK making it difficult for EU citizens coming the other way and EU citizens being denied entry despite meeting the new post-Brexit rules or being grilled by border forces on visiting early on after Brexit - even with the heads of the EU telling the UK to calm down because we were enforcing Brexit rules too harshly. 

 

Also France is the most visited tourist nation in the world. UK citizens make up a fraction of that, they’re not going to miss us. I think many British people still have too lofty an idea of our country’s standing in the world.

British tourists spend around £6 billion a year in France, they might be willing to sacrifice that and it will be spent elsewhere.

 

You might not have a high opinion of the UK on the world stage but we do have cash and we spend it abroad. We also import foreign goods. It doesn't make any sense for France or any other EU nation to reject it unless it's based upon political principles.

[Captain...]

The Lib Dems could run on a policy of a second referendum. That will win them some seats and a lot of votes across the board, however would it be enough to be king makers and I don't know if they could or would run with a policy for a coalition, but the referendum could be a non negotiable for forming a government. This could be the get out that Labour need to not actively promote seeking to rejoin the EU but run on a policy of rebuilding those bridges burnt by Boris. Then if they need to form a coalition with the Lib Dems their hands are tied they have to agree to a referendum. That could be a way out of this mess.

 

Hopefully LDs will have learnt their lesson from last time where they sold their promise to bit increase tuition fees for a proxy referendum on transferable alternative vote, which they lost, so for nothing.

[Captain...]

2 minutes ago, kenny said:

British tourists spend around £6 billion a year in France, they might be willing to sacrifice that and it will be spent elsewhere.

 

You might not have a high opinion of the UK on the world stage but we do have cash and we spend it abroad. We also import foreign goods. It doesn't make any sense for France or any other EU nation to reject it unless it's based upon political principles.

Or other priorities. The point is we are not their first concern and we should not just expect them to bow to our demands. 

[Dunge]

8 minutes ago, Captain... said:

The Lib Dems could run on a policy of a second referendum. That will win them some seats and a lot of votes across the board, however would it be enough to be king makers and I don't know if they could or would run with a policy for a coalition, but the referendum could be a non negotiable for forming a government. This could be the get out that Labour need to not actively promote seeking to rejoin the EU but run on a policy of rebuilding those bridges burnt by Boris. Then if they need to form a coalition with the Lib Dems their hands are tied they have to agree to a referendum. That could be a way out of this mess.

 

Hopefully LDs will have learnt their lesson from last time where they sold their promise to bit increase tuition fees for a proxy referendum on transferable alternative vote, which they lost, so for nothing.

A second referendum would be tantamount to a policy of rejoining. It could actually be worse because it would be viewed as surreptitious and deceitful.

[kenny]

10 minutes ago, Captain... said:

Or other priorities. The point is we are not their first concern and we should not just expect them to bow to our demands. 

There are no demands. They either make it easy for tourists or they don't. If they don't, they go elsewhere.

[Sampson]

8 minutes ago, kenny said:

There are no demands. They either make it easy for tourists or they don't. If they don't, they go elsewhere.

They won’t. The rules are the same Schengen wide, Schengen border officials now have to question UK citizens about their reasons for entry, who they’re visiting etc. and check all their previous stamps and visas in their passports then stamp their passports, just as they have always done for every other non-EU/EEA citizen, and UK citizens now have to stand in the same queue behind Iraqi, Syrian etc. citizens who tend to get a longer screening process. Just as the UK border force now also has to for all non-Irish EU citizens, just as they always have done for non-EU citizens.
 

The vast majority of UK citizens never leave Europe in their entire life and those that do tend to just do one or two “once in a lifetime” trips to the US or Australia, while still holidaying in Europe 9 times out of 10. UK citizens won’t just stop going to Schengen for holidays.

Edited 24 July 2022 by Sampson

[kenny]

3 minutes ago, Sampson said:

They won’t. The rules are the same Schengen wide, Schengen border officials now have to question UK citizens about their reasons for entry, who they’re visiting etc. and check all their previous stamps and visas in their passports then stamp their passports, just as they have to for every other non-EU/EEA citizen. Just as the UK border force now also has to for all non-Irish EU citizens.
 

The vast majority of UK citizens never leave Europe in their entire life and those that do tend to just do one or two “once in a lifetime” trips to the US or Australia, while still holidaying in Europe 9 times out of 10. UK citizens won’t just stop going to Schengen for holidays.

Agreed.

 

It's easier to enter other parts of Schengen than France due to their current political position.

[weller54]

14 minutes ago, Dunge said:

A second referendum would be tantamount to a policy of rejoining. It could actually be worse because it would be viewed as surreptitious and deceitful.

The first referendum wasn't deceitful at all was it?

[Sampson]

13 minutes ago, kenny said:

Agreed.

 

It's easier to enter other parts of Schengen than France due to their current political position.

Mate, I can 100% guarantee that if this had been the other way round and it was France who left the EU, then you categorically  would not be saying “why are we not investing tens of millions on increasing border controls in Calais and hiring more border staff to help French tourists in quicker on ferries and the Eurostar? Now that they need more and longer checks based on a French political decision.”

 

The political position is the UK’s not France’s. French border controls are just following EU law that has always existed and that UK border forces previously followed, based on a political decision made by the UK and based on a withdrawal agreement signed between the UK and the EU. 
 

It is the height of arrogance to demand that France should pour extra millions its funding into border staff because of a political decision the UK made and a withdrawal agreement the UK drew up and signed, which now means French border staff have to do much more checks on UK citizens and their goods more, based on pre-existing laws the UK not only was fully aware of when they made this political decision, but ones which the UK actively previously signed and helped draw up. And not only that but then to try and claim it’s France’s fault and it’s them who are the ones playing politics for not pumping millions into increasing border force.

[Dunge]

45 minutes ago, weller54 said:

The first referendum wasn't deceitful at all was it?

Well it was, but I suspect we’d have different views as to in what way.

[leicsmac]

When it comes to the whole Dover/Folkestone mess.

 

Either a) Dover is a mess because of the British government, or b) the UK gave the French the continuing ability to cause mass chaos and therefore were not actually "taking back control".

 

If there's another logical conclusion to be drawn, then I'd be happy to hear it.

[ozleicester]

3 hours ago, kenny said:

a functioning market economy

[Daggers]

8 hours ago, Foxdiamond said:

The Lib Democrats got caned for their part in the coalition. I suppose they paid the price for getting into bed with the Tories. Ironic really as they stopped a lot of the more right wing policies. 

They’d have stopped a lot more right wing policies if they’d formed a coalition with Labour instead.

[kenny]

7 hours ago, Sampson said:

Mate, I can 100% guarantee that if this had been the other way round and it was France who left the EU, then you categorically  would not be saying “why are we not investing tens of millions on increasing border controls in Calais and hiring more border staff to help French tourists in quicker on ferries and the Eurostar? Now that they need more and longer checks based on a French political decision.”

 

The political position is the UK’s not France’s. French border controls are just following EU law that has always existed and that UK border forces previously followed, based on a political decision made by the UK and based on a withdrawal agreement signed between the UK and the EU. 
 

It is the height of arrogance to demand that France should pour extra millions its funding into border staff because of a political decision the UK made and a withdrawal agreement the UK drew up and signed, which now means French border staff have to do much more checks on UK citizens and their goods more, based on pre-existing laws the UK not only was fully aware of when they made this political decision, but ones which the UK actively previously signed and helped draw up. And not only that but then to try and claim it’s France’s fault and it’s them who are the ones playing politics for not pumping millions into increasing border force.

I would absolutely be expecting the UK to invest to ensure that the disruption was minimal.

 

Why on earth would we want flow of traffic to a trading partner to be disrupted?

 

As I keep saying, they can do what they want and tourists will vote with their feet.

[st albans fox]

7 hours ago, kenny said:

British tourists spend around £6 billion a year in France, they might be willing to sacrifice that and it will be spent elsewhere.

 

You might not have a high opinion of the UK on the world stage but we do have cash and we spend it abroad. We also import foreign goods. It doesn't make any sense for France or any other EU nation to reject it unless it's based upon political principles.

We are entering a proxy trade war with the EU based on the U.K. changing the withdrawal agreement unilaterally and therefore international law. this is not the opinion of our attorney general but if you’ve even listened to her then you wouldn’t allow her to defend your parking ticket.

 

why the EU would be failing to go the extra mile (km) at the moment escapes me …

 

this situation should have been foreseen by our authorities - i doubt that the EU has a system where all entries across all countries is available on line. Hence they have to trawl through each passport to view stamps over the past year and calculate if necessary.  That’s a pain if you have 200 arriving on a plane but it’s clearly going to be a disaster at dover and eurotunnel. There is an argument that these checks should have been moved well Inland and those arriving at dover would have a sticker on their passports to show they had been checked - then would only take a quick view of photos against occupants as used to be the case. 
 

 

[CosbehFox]

13 hours ago, Captain... said:

Behind a paywall, but Bloomberg have a version of the story: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-24/france-blocks-efforts-to-increase-eurostar-services-telegraph

 

"Eurostar wants to increase the number of trips between London and Paris to 17 a day, the newspaper reported. But French border and security officials at Gare du Nord say that they can manage only a maximum of 13 trains a day even amid a boom in demand for overseas travel this summer, according to the publication."

 

13 hours ago, Fazzer 7 said:

It also said pre pandemic Eurostar ran 25 shuttles including onward to brussels and Amsterdam. It then went on to say they, the French were suffering chronic shortages of security and scanning staff and couldn’t handle more trains. 

Not a lot different to the situation at Heathrow then 

[kenny]

10 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

We are entering a proxy trade war with the EU based on the U.K. changing the withdrawal agreement unilaterally and therefore international law. this is not the opinion of our attorney general but if you’ve even listened to her then you wouldn’t allow her to defend your parking ticket.

 

why the EU would be failing to go the extra mile (km) at the moment escapes me …

 

this situation should have been foreseen by our authorities - i doubt that the EU has a system where all entries across all countries is available on line. Hence they have to trawl through each passport to view stamps over the past year and calculate if necessary.  That’s a pain if you have 200 arriving on a plane but it’s clearly going to be a disaster at dover and eurotunnel. There is an argument that these checks should have been moved well Inland and those arriving at dover would have a sticker on their passports to show they had been checked - then would only take a quick view of photos against occupants as used to be the case. 
 

 

If they were checking stamps in a passport to ensure that people are complying with the 90 day limit then it would take forever. It would take 10 minutes or so to decipher that in my passport as the stamps are all over the place.

 

 

[st albans fox]

2 minutes ago, kenny said:

If they were checking stamps in a passport to ensure that people are complying with the 90 day limit then it would take forever. It would take 10 minutes or so to decipher that in my passport as the stamps are all over the place.

 

 

I think that’s what they’re doing kenny (at least it was - I wonder if there has been an advisory to cut back on inspection of obvious ‘family holidaymakers to relieve the queues)

 

the only reason that it isn’t taking an age compared to a few minutes is that the vast majority travelling won’t have been away and will have v few stamps in their passports. 

[kenny]

11 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

I think that’s what they’re doing kenny (at least it was - I wonder if there has been an advisory to cut back on inspection of obvious ‘family holidaymakers to relieve the queues)

 

the only reason that it isn’t taking an age compared to a few minutes is that the vast majority travelling won’t have been away and will have v few stamps in their passports. 

Might be,they didn't look in Hungary at all. Just did the usual scan the passport and check the photo.

 

I would guess if you are correct that France is single handedly taking it upon themselves to ensure that the Schengen laws are being complied with while the rest of the EU is more pragmatic. Or more likely they aren't doing that and are just having a coffee.

[st albans fox]

8 minutes ago, kenny said:

Might be,they didn't look in Hungary at all. Just did the usual scan the passport and check the photo.

 

I would guess if you are correct that France is single handedly taking it upon themselves to ensure that the Schengen laws are being complied with while the rest of the EU is more pragmatic. Or more likely they aren't doing that and are just having a coffee.

It’s an easy one for them (and the eu)

causing massive queues in the U.K. rather than on eu territory which upsets their population. Plus it may dissuade some Europeans from coming here on holidays and keeps that money inside the union. 

 

they want the govt elected here in 2024 to be less aggressive and more constructive - I suspect it’s all part of that calculation. it probably won’t work