Holidaymakers heading to France have pledged never to go through the port of Dover again after being stuck in traffic jams of up to nine hours.
According to Daily Mail reports, snaking queues of cars and lorries have been spotted as tens of thousands of exasperated families were caught up in travel chaos at the border.
Among those affected were pensioners Paul and Wendy Nicholas who were heading to Cologne to join a river cruise.
They got to the port by train but the coach they had to catch got caught in a huge traffic jam 18 miles outside Dover.
“We’ve no idea when the coach is going to get here,” Nicholas told the Daily Mail, saying: “It’s been a disaster”.
The pensioners still face a four hour drive to Cologne once they’ve reached Calais – but they aren’t hopeful they’ll reach their destination eventually.
68-year-old Wendy added: “There’s always the option of just going home and sitting in the garden with a Pimms I suppose. We’ll just put an Andre Rieu video on or something.”
Paul, who voted for Brexit, believes the chaos at the port yesterday and today has been caused by ‘less than generous relations with the French’ after the UK left the EU.
Pierre-Henri Dumont, a Republican MP for Calais, has claimed that the British Government has rejected a proposal to double the number of passport booths for French police at Dover a few months ago.
“No need to blame French authorities for the traffic jams in Dover, that’s an aftermath of Brexit,” he tweeted.
Doug Bannister, chief executive of the Port of Dover, also said the increased checks at the border that have come with Brexit are the blame for “increased transaction times” that have caused huge tailbacks into the port over the last couple of days.
As Simon Calder put it, “we asked for this” when the UK voted to leave the EU:
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