Britannia waives the rules

As a big supporter of public service broadcasting in general and the BBC in particular, it gives me no pleasure to boot the boot into the corporation for its pitiful coverage of the gridlock Dover voted for and is currently suffering. Some two thirds of the good citizens of Dover voted to Take Back Control Of Our Borders in the EU referendum of 2016 so I am sure they are not surprised by the latest consequences of Brexit. The traffic chaos has seen doctors and dentists in the town close down because patients can’t get to surgeries. The same is happening with hospital appointments. Many people can’t even get to work. Some of the consequences of Brexit are not just for summer: they’re forever.

The Independent’s travel writer, the excellent Simon Calder, explains the simple truth. No longer can you simply wave a passport at passport control. We told the EU that we wanted our own passports back – thanks to the French for producing them for us, by the way – and that we wanted them stamped, too. That takes time, lots of it. I preferred the old days when you simply waved passports at disinterested passport staff and indeed would have been delighted had we become part of Schengen where passports across Europe are barely needed. But this Taking Back Control malarkey, eh? Stopping Johnny Foreigner coming over here to do the jobs we don’t want to do cuts both ways.

Don’t worry: I’m not arguing for Britain to rejoin the EU. We’re stuck with the many benefits for at least the next generation. The loss of freedom of movement, time-limited stays in EU countries, the return of telephone roaming charges, the near destruction of companies trying to export to the EU, the barriers faced by touring musicians and other artists – like the good folk of Dover, we’ve got what we asked for. And it’s no good blaming those pesky Europeans for letting us have what we want.

Even die hard leavers know there are no benefits to Brexit. Those who voted leave to stop EU people coming to work here now have Pakistanis, Nigerians and Indians instead, as migration hasn’t slowed down at all. Maybe it’s an historical thing. A throwback to Empire when Britannia ruled the waves. Under Boris Johnson, Britannia waived the rules. And look where it’s gotten us.

Most of us want Brexit to go away, one way or another. We’re just sick of it, so it’s such a shame that the Conservative party, as illustrated by the two deadbeats running to replace Johnson, want to keep milking Brexit, constantly banging on about it, primarily to try to influence the 150,000 elderly Tory members who will decide our new prime minister. At least Labour gets it. Brexit isn’t done but it can be done by making it work with a better agreement. No halfway house to rejoin; just something to make our lives simpler and less expensive.

In any event, unless the most hardline Brexiters change their mind – and there are many millions of them – rejoining is not an option. Despite the fact that Brexit was sold as a lie, the 2016 referendum result and the 2019 general election result killed remain, at least for a generation, maybe forever.

Whatever we get outside Europe, it will never be as good as what we had in it. That’s as close to being a fact, as opposed to an opinion, as you can get. There must be something better than the current scenes at Dover, the collapse in British exports to Europe and all the rest of it.

Blaming the French for what we demanded is hilarious and tragic all at the same time. The papers and the politicians are lying to us again and that, it seems, is just how we like it.