Internal Passports? How Very Soviet

[davidgillon]

Unfortunately I'm not making it up. Boris and his chum Gove have decided that the way to ensure they don't have 7000 heavy goods lorries queuing through Kent to get to Dover is to stop them entering Kent unless they have a "Kent Access Permit". To make it worse, the system to issue them, and do all the other new post Brexit customs stuff, won't go into public beta until late November, or possibly December, despite needing to be live on 1st January. This is all part of their strategy for insuring we won't have an internal border through the Irish Sea come Brexit going live. Whoops.

I'm particularly worried that given Gove's involvement, as Education Minister he expressed a wish for all schools to be 'better than average', they'll have forgotten you can't get to Medway (where I live), without going through Kent, and that they won't have scaled Smart Freight, the new export control software suite, for all the traffic trying to get into Kent without actually wanting to go to Europe.

Twitter is finding #KentBorder a source of great hilarity. My personal contribution was to declare that it was time for the Cinque Ports to reassert their traditional leadership and international dominance.

*Headdesk* *Headdesk* *Headdesk* *Headdesk* *Headdesk*

Comments

[lilysea]

I have no problem at all with internal passports or permits to reduce the spread of COVID - since COVID Australian citizens/Australian permanent residents can't legally enter many states in Australia without a permit arranged days or weeks ahead of time (for my state the turn around for entry permits is currently around 6 business days from the date of your application) [1], and you can only get a permit if you meet the criteria and haven't been within a COVID "hot zone" within the previous 14 days.

But what you describe seems utterly nonsensical...

[1] "The G2G PASS initiative

A State of Emergency has been declared for the whole of Western Australia (WA), and Directions have been given by the State Emergency Coordinator under the Emergency Management Act 2005 (WA) which prevent a person from travelling into WA unless they are an exempt traveller, and which impose quarantine requirements on persons who are permitted to enter WA.

A State of Emergency has also been declared for the whole of Tasmania, and Directions have been issued by the State Controller under the Emergency Management Act 2006 (Tas) requiring non-essential travellers into Tasmania to quarantine for 14 days.

The G2G PASS is an initiative of the Western Australia Police Force (WA Police) in response to the Directions in force in WA. Working closely with the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, the Department of Transport, and supported by Nous Group and GenVis, the G2G PASS was built to help WA Police Force manage and enforce the Directions in force in WA whilst ensuring the impact on essential services and the WA economy is limited. Some people really do need to be on the road, and an entirely digital solution is the best way to make that happen quickly and efficiently.

Capability has been added to G2G PASS to allow for management of travellers into Tasmania in accordance with the Directions in place in Tasmania."

[vass]

as Education Minister he expressed a wish for all schools to be 'better than average'

What's his district, Lake Wobegon?