Adam Boulton: Bank holiday travellers beware – getting to and from Europe is about to get a whole lot harder
The August bank holiday has arrived – the cue for millions to get back to work after whatever holidays they have managed to enjoy.
Over this weekend many Britons will be coming home from Europe through ports, airports and the Channel Tunnel.
Their trips may have included frustrating delays and border checks but there won’t be another summer which runs as smoothly as 2024 for many years ahead.
Passengers waiting to cross the Channel at the Port of Dover in July. Pic: PA
In a couple of months’ time, the European Union will start imposing its new “Entry-Exit System” (EES) on UK citizens.
That will mean fingerprint and biometric recognition for every British visitor to the EU’s Schengen area by the end of this year.
From November 2025 we will have to obtain a de-facto visa for entry in advance, at a cost of €7 (£6) for a three-year permit.
Nobody doubts that EES is going to lead to delays and greater costs for travellers and border control authorities alike.
For example, car passengers arriving at Dover have been told processing could take 15 hours before they get on a ferry.
The UK supported the strengthening of EU borders when it was a member state.
After Brexit, the UK now faces the consequences from the other side of the fence.
Lorries queued up waiting to enter the Port of Dover this summer. Pic: PA
Starmer could seek to delay super-sensitive restrictions again
These extra practical frictions for UK travellers are coming in at the very time when the new Labour government in the UK is trying to establish friendlier relations with the EU.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has a meeting with the newly re-appointed European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in September and there are plans to re-establish regular meetings between the UK and the bloc.
But in terms of identity, the new system is merely a confirmation of this nation’s changed status.
From now on British citizens will be treated by the European Union in a similar way to the reception they receive from other allied nations such as Japan and the United States.
Europe is, however, overwhelmingly the main destination for British travellers, whether for business or leisure.
Last year official UK government statistics report 66 million visits by Britons to Europe, 60 million of them to core EU countries, compared to 4.5 million to North America, the next most frequently visited.
Spain, Greece, Italy, France and Portugal make up Britons’ top five foreign holiday destinations.
Making travel from the UK to Europe more irksome is super sensitive for both sides and implementation of the new border controls has been repeatedly postponed.
First planned in 2017, they were originally meant to come in in 2021. Even the latest start date for biometric checks of 10 November 2024, is a month later than the most recent October deadline. At least travellers in the autumn half-term should now avoid the hassle.
Sir Keir’s imminent talks could just possibly lead to further delay, although this seems unlikely.
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What to expect in the near future
According to The Times this week, Sir Keir’s agenda is topped by agreeing to three years of freedom of movement for the under-30s both ways between the UK and the EU.
The arrangement would be similar to the one the UK now shares with New Zealand and Australia. Previously Rishi Sunak’s government flatly ruled out this idea when the EU suggested it.
So expect biometric testing to start in November.
Travelling across borders this summer, at airports and ferry ports, I could see the technology already in place, lines of booths and sensors, ready and waiting.
Air travellers will be processed on arrival in Europe. Those using ferries or trains are expected to complete the formalities at UK points of exit.
The costs and delays are likely to be here.
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Eurostar is spending £8.5m on extra facilities at St Pancras, including a new overflow room.
It plans to have terminals to confirm the Electronic Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) dotted around the station as a whole because there is not enough room in its part of the terminus.
In Folkestone, where cars and lorries board the Eurotunnel, an extra £70m has been earmarked.
The Port of Dover is expanding processing facilities for coaches into its western docks and plans to have more holding space on site for cars “by 2027”.
Brexit supporters hope the new rules will help deter illegal migrants. Pic: PA
New system ‘effectively a visa’
Officially the new compulsory permission from ETIAS to enter the EU is not a visa.
But Simon Calder, the veteran British travel journalist, says it “amounts to one” and is broadly similar to the Electronic System for Travel Authorisation (ESTA) travel waiver to the US.
He points out that both require an online application in advance, the supply of significant personal information, the payment of money and result in permission to cross a border.
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As well as details of age, home address and passport, applicants will also be asked if they have criminal convictions or have recently visited war zones.
It is estimated that ETIAS will take three days to process applications.
There will be a grace period of six months for muddles after the introduction of ETIAS for UK citizens in May next year but from November 2025 those who do not have ETIAS approval will not be allowed to travel. Stamping of passports on entry and exit will be dropped.
Scammers are already active online offering to process ETIAS.
Frontex, the European Border and Coastguard Agency, stresses the only way to get an ETIAS will be to apply at europa.eu/elias, at a fixed rate.
The system is not yet open or required for UK citizens.
Issues of immigration and identity impacted by change
The EU’s Schengen travel area includes all 27 member states, except for Ireland and Cyprus, as well as Norway, Switzerland, Lichtenstein and Iceland. The Common Travel Area between Ireland and the UK remains in place.
In the long run of years, these new measures may make travel more efficient for those with the right documentation.
They will also increase the control of the authorities over who may enter their zone.
The UK and the EU both want to clamp down on illegal migration.
But inevitably the bureaucracy of travelling is also affecting how people see their own identity.
The last, pro-Brexit, UK government wanted to reach bilateral deals with individual European countries, in part to undermine the concept of European solidarity.
The EES is a pushback by the so-called “European Superstate” that it does not intend to be divided so easily.
EU citizens, who are more used than Britons to ID cards, already have to go through technological checkpoints to enter the UK and are subject to similar restrictions on duration of stay.
Practical barriers are going up between the UK and Europe, leaving those who identify as both British and European caught in the middle.
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Travelling from France to Ireland by ferry this week, I could see this psychodrama advertised on the back of the vehicles coming on board.
Ireland has been transformed and liberated by its entry into the European Community in the wake of the UK. With its open border to the south, Northern Ireland has a foot in both camps. In trade terms this wound was rubbed in the long wrangle over the protocol and then the Windsor Framework.
More poignantly, the bumper stickers on the cars and trailers travelling home to the north via Cork were confused with the letters “NI” stamped on the European flag, just like on all the other member states of the European Union – to which the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland no longer belongs.
For some UK citizens, extra travel hassle and ETIAS charges may be prices worth paying for “taking back control”. Many others, with new anxieties over travel plans, followed by fretting in queues, may not feel that way.
For ordinary travellers, these changes in travel regulations to Europe may matter as much in practice as some of the new government’s more talked about challenges.
Sir Keir Starmer cannot afford to brush them aside.
The last blast furnaces left operating in Britain could see their fate sealed within days, after their Chinese owners took the decision to cut off the crucial supply of ingredients keeping them running.
Jingye, the owner of British Steel in Scunthorpe, has, according to union representatives, cancelled future orders for the iron ore, coal and other raw materials needed to keep the furnaces running.
The upshot is that they may have to close next month – even sooner than the earliest date suggested for its closure.
Read more: Thousands of jobs at risk as British Steel consults unions over closure
The fate of the blast furnaces – the last two domestic sources of virgin steel, made from iron ore rather than recycled – is likely to be determined in a matter of days, with the Department for Business and Trade now actively pondering nationalisation.
The upshot is that even as Britain contends with a trade war across the Atlantic, it is now working against the clock to secure the future of steelmaking at Scunthorpe.
The talks between the government and Jingye broke down last week after the Chinese company, which bought British Steel out of receivership in 2020, rejected a £500m offer of public money to replace the existing furnaces with electric arc furnaces.
The sum is the same one it offered to Tata Steel, which has shut down the other remaining UK blast furnaces in Port Talbot and is planning to build electric furnaces – which have far lower carbon emissions.
These steel workers could soon be out of work
However, the owners argue that the amount is too little to justify extra investment at Scunthorpe, and said last week they were now consulting on the date of shutting both the blast furnaces and the attached steelworks.
Since British Steel is the main provider of steel rails to Network Rail – as well as other construction steels available from only a few sites in the world – the closure would leave the UK more reliant on imports for critical infrastructure sites.
However, since the site belongs to its Chinese owners, a decision to nationalise the site would involve radical steps government officials are wary of taking.
They also fear leaving taxpayers exposed to a potentially loss-making business for the long run.
The dilemma has been heightened by the sharp turn in geopolitical sentiment following Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
The incipient trade war and threatened cut in American support to Europe have sparked fresh calls for countries to act urgently to secure their own supplies of critical materials, especially those used for defence and infrastructure.
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Gareth Stace, head of UK Steel, the industry lobby group, said: “Talks seem to have broken down between government and British Steel.
“My advice to government is: please, Jonathan Reynolds, Business Secretary, get back round that negotiating table, thrash out a deal, and if a deal can’t be found in the next few days, then I fear for the very future of the sector, but also here for Scunthorpe steelworks.”
British Steel declined to comment.
UK
Prince Andrew’s Pitch@Palace branded ‘crude attempt to enrich himself’ as Chinese spy documents set to be released
Prince Andrew’s efforts to make money from his Pitch@Palace project have been branded as a “crude attempt to enrich himself” at the expense of “unsuspecting tech founders”, as new documents may shed more light on what he and his team have been attempting to sell.
Today is the deadline for documents to be released relating to Prince Andrew‘s former senior adviser Dominic Hampshire and his interactions with the alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo.
In February, an immigration tribunal heard how the intelligence services had contacted Mr Hampshire about Mr Yang back in 2022. Mr Yang helped set up Pitch@Palace China, a branch of the duke’s scheme to help young entrepreneurs.
The alleged Chinese spy, Yang Tengbo, has links with Prince Andrew
Yang Tengbo. Pic: Pitch@Palace
Judges banned Mr Yang from the UK, saying his association with a senior royal had made Prince Andrew “vulnerable” and posed a threat to national security. Mr Yang challenged that decision at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC).
Since that hearing, media organisations have applied for certain documents relating to the case and Mr Hampshire’s support for Mr Yang to be made public. SIAC agreed to release some information of public interest. It is hoped they may include more details on deals that he was trying to do on behalf of Prince Andrew.
So what do we know about potential deals for Pitch@Palace so far?
In February, Sky News confirmed that palace officials had a meeting last summer with tech funding company StartupBootcamp to discuss a potential tie-up between them and Prince Andrew relating to his Pitch@Palace project.
The palace wasn’t involved in the fine details of a deal but wanted guarantees to make sure it wouldn’t impact the Royal Family in the future. Sky News understands from one source that the price being discussed for Pitch was around £750,000 – there are, however, reports that a deal may have stalled.
Photos we found on the Chinese Chamber of Commerce website show an event held in Asia between StartupBootcamp and Innovate Global, believed to be an offshoot of Pitch.
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Documents, released in relation to the investigations into Mr Tengbo, have also shown how much the duke has always seen Pitch as a way of potentially making money. One document from 21 August 2021 clearly states “the duke needed money at the time, and saw the relationships with China through Pitch as one possible source of funding”.
But Prince Andrew’s apparent intention to use Pitch to make money has led to concerns about whether he is unfairly using the contacts and information he gained when he was a working royal.
Norman Baker, former MP and author of books on royal finances, believes it is “a crude attempt to enrich himself” and goes against what the tech entrepreneurs thought they were signing up for.
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He told Sky News: “The data given by these business people was given on the basis it was an official operation and not something for Prince Andrew, and so in my view, Prince Andrew had no right legally or morally to take the data which has been collected, a huge amount of data, and sell it…
“And quite clearly if you’re going to sell it off to StartupBootcamp, that is not what people had in mind. The entrepreneurs who joined Pitch@Palace did not do so to enrich Prince Andrew,” he said.
Rich Wilson was one tech entrepreneur who was approached at the start of Pitch@Palace to sign up, but he stepped away when he spotted a clause in the contract saying they’d be entitled to 2% equity in any funding he secured.
He feels Prince Andrew is continuing to use those he made a show of supporting.
He said: “It makes me feel sick. I think it’s terrible – that he is continuing to exploit unsuspecting tech founders in this way. A lot of them, I’m quite grey and old in the tooth now, I saw it coming, but clearly most didn’t. And a lot of them were quite young.
“It’ll be their first venture and you’re learning on the trot, so to speak. So to take advantage of people in such a major way – that’s an awful, sickening thing to do.”
We approached StartupBootcamp who said they had no comment to make, and the Duke of York’s office did not respond.
With reports that a deal may have stalled, it could be a big setback for the duke – especially with questions still about how he’ll continue to pay for his home on the Windsor estate now that the King no longer gives him financial support.
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