Guardina nearly back to old liberalism -- ie can't make its mind up

An unusual seemingly non-dogmatic (or was it indecisive) headline in the Guardian today, but the rest of the piece looks like it was written by two people,one an optimist and one  apessimist

Kent travel chaos: is there a fix and should Brexit take the blame?

What is to blame?

In short, the big increase in post-pandemic travel combined with Brexit passport checks...

What happened at the weekend?

The port of Dover experienced a fivefold increase in car numbers year on year....on Friday it said it handled 11,000 cars, up from 1,200 on the equivalent Friday in 2021....On Saturday it handled just under 12,000 cars, compared with 2,400 this time last year, and 10,000 cars on Sunday compared with 1,900 on the equivalent Sunday in 2021....

Was Dover prepared?

Yes. The Dover chief executive, Doug Bannister, told LBC it was “absolutely true” that Brexit was to blame for the extreme delays caused by a new requirement to stamp British passports....The port had been preparing for months for the increase in traveller numbers but said it was let down by unexpected French border staff shortages....The French said there was a technical issue in the tunnel, which delayed their staff getting to Britain....By lunchtime on Friday the full complement of French staff were on site but by then the queueing had got “out of control” and Dover had a huge task to make up for lost time.

Back to normal at the foot of the column though:

Is Brexit to blame?

To a large degree, yes....[but read what you just said above fer Chrissake!] Criticising the French, as Truss did, was to deny the consequences of the hard Brexit the UK Conservative government fought for and won.

 But what of the future, assuming we do not rejoin?

Was the bottleneck caused by passport checks preventable?

Yes. The government rejected the port of Dover’s request for a £33m chunk of a Brexit infrastructure fund in 2020 to, among other things, double the capacity for French passport checks. It got just £33,000 instead.

Will passport checks be automated in future?

Yes. And there are plans in place for an electronic visa waiver system, called the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS), similar to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) in the US

However:

Biometric checks could require passengers to get out of their cars to go through an airport-style facial recognition barrier or fingerprint checks....Both Eurotunnel and the port of Dover warned that this was both a danger for drivers and passengers but also that there was no room for the extra biometric booths.

However again, and flip-flopping back once more

John Keefe, the head of public affairs at Getlink, the owner of Eurotunnel, told the BBC that one of the issues was that all the traffic was coming down one motorway, the M2, but significant improvements could be made if the A2, the old road to Dover, was upgraded to a dual carriageway to the port.