The backlog at the Port of Dover has been cleared after coaches were stuck in queues for hours at the weekend ahead of Easter.
Labour and some Conservative MPs blamed Brexit for the weekend of chaos, while Home Secretary Suella Braverman said the scene won’t become a regular occurrence.
By around 7:30 a.m. on Monday morning, the buffer zone at the entrance to the Port of Dover had been cleared, P&O Ferries said in an update on Twitter.
All coaches, tourist cars, and freight vehicles had been processed successfully, the port said in a statement.
“The Port of Dover continued working round the clock with the ferry operators and border agencies to get coach passengers on their way and the backlog is now cleared,” the statement reads.
The port apologised to those affected by the delays, adding, “We will be conducting a full review of our plans with the ferry operators early this week to ensure improvements are made ready for the forthcoming Easter weekend.”
P&O Ferries also apologised over the delays, and said there are now “minor queues at the entrance to the Port of Dover.”
Logistics company DFDS said on Twitter that the buffer zone and border controls had been cleared by midnight.
It also said on Monday morning that traffic was free flowing through check-in and border controls at Dover, Calais, and Dunkirk.
Speaking on Sky’s “Sophy Ridge On Sunday” programme, shadow levelling up secretary Lisa Nandy said the delays were caused by “a range of factors,” and the government had not prepared for post-Brexit border check changes.
Ministers had “known for a very long time that they needed to make sure that there were resources in place to deal with additional paperwork checks,” she said.
Nandy said she felt for those who were “caught up in this chaos” and those “whose livelihoods are threatened,” adding, “It didn’t need to be this way.”
“If the government got a grip, got down to brass tacks and started doing their actual job, all these things could be avoided,” the Labour MP said.
Some Conservative MPs also said Brexit seemed to have played a part in the holiday gridlock.
He said it’s up to both the French and the British authorities to “work even harder to make sure that those short straits are working as effectively as possible at times of maximum pressure.”
Conservative MP and Defence Committee Chair Tobias Ellwood also said on Twitter that it’s “of course” connected to post-Brexit border checks and the introduction of fingerprint scans at the border in November last year.
But Braverman said she doesn’t think it’s fair to say the delay was an adverse effect of Brexit.
“What I would say is at acute times when there is a lot of pressure crossing the [English] Channel, whether that’s on the tunnel or ferries, then I think that there’s always going to be a backup and I just urge everybody to be a bit patient while the ferry companies work their way through the backlog,” she told “Sophy Ridge On Sunday.”
The home secretary also downplayed fears that delays at Dover could become a regular occurrence.
She told the BBC’s “Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg” that it wouldn’t happen every school holiday, suggesting that in general “things have been operating very smoothly at the border.”
“I don’t think this is the state of affairs to go forward,” the minister said.
“I think we have got a particular combination of factors that have occurred at this point in time.”
Asked how Labour would solve the problem, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme on Monday, “I would urge the Home Office, the transport department, to talk with Dover and also with their French counterparts to make sure that we don’t get a re-run of this.”
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer also blamed Brexit for the delays, but told LBC that he is not advocating a reversal of Brexit.
