As the summer sun beckons, British holidaymakers have been greeted not by the usual passport stamp, but by a spectacular demonstration of bureaucratic inertia. The European Union's new Entry/Exit System (EES), a digital registration scheme for non-EU travellers, has caused chaos at border crossings. Queues snake for hours. Flights are missed. And all of this, we are told, is the 'Brexit dividend'.
Let us, for a moment, step back and admire the exquisite irony. For years, we were lectured by the Remain camp that leaving the EU would lead to economic collapse, international isolation, and the collapse of civilisation as we know it. Instead, we have achieved something far more subtle: a slow-motion, bureaucratic revenge fantasy. The EES is not merely a system for collecting fingerprints and photographs, but a monument to a certain kind of petty institutional malice. It is the Union's way of saying, 'You left us, and now you shall pay in inconvenience'.
But the real tragedy is not the delays, though make no mistake, they are deeply infuriating. The tragedy is that this chaos could have been avoided. The EES was meant to be introduced in 2022, then delayed. Its implementation has been haphazard, with ports and airports given minimal time to adapt. The French, who control the border at Dover and the Eurotunnel, have been characteristically unhelpful. One cannot help but suspect that this is a deliberate act of defiance, a way of reminding the British that, outside the EU, they are merely 'third country nationals', a phrase that drips with contempt.
And yet, the true farce is the British government's response. Rather than prepare for this eventuality, rather than use the years since the referendum to build a robust, streamlined border system, they have done what they always do: kick the can down the road, blame the French, and advise travellers to 'arrive early'. Arrive early? This is the same government that cannot organise a rail timetable without a crisis. The idea that they could manage a complex digital border is laughable.
What we are witnessing is the slow, painful realisation that 'taking back control' means taking on a great deal of administrative burden. Yes, we are now free from EU directives, but we are also free from its infrastructure, its data-sharing agreements, its pre-clearance arrangements. The price of sovereignty is queues, to use a blunt metaphor. But it is a price we must pay if we wish to be a truly independent nation. The alternative is to become a vassal state of Brussels, without even the comfort of a vote.
Yet there is a deeper, more troubling pattern here. This holiday chaos is a microcosm of a broader failure of British statecraft. We are a nation that once built an empire, that defeated Nazism, that created the NHS. Now, we cannot process a passport quickly. We have become a nation of low expectations, where 'world-beating' has become a synonym for 'passable'. The EES farce is a symptom of a society that has lost its capacity for large-scale, efficient organisation. It is a sign of decadence.
To the Remainers who gloat, I say this: Your vision of a comfortable, frictionless Europe is a fantasy built on the denial of democracy. The queues are ugly, but they are honest. They are the price of self-government. The real scandal is not the inconvenience, but the incompetence. If we are to be a great nation again, we must demand better from our leaders. Not better excuses, not better blaming, but better governance. Until then, we will continue to shuffle forward, one slow, exasperating step at a time, towards a border that is neither welcoming nor efficient. Ah, the dividends of freedom.
