Dover and Brexit: update

Work has restarted at the White CLiffs Business Park on the new freight facility. This is after nearly a year of no work, but progress is picking up. This is supposed to be the new vetenary check facility, something which furture alignment could make obsolete overnight. So the fact it is going ahead now means there is little intention of common sense getting involved any time soon.

The P&O issue didn't create many issues last week, other than confusion in the first few hours, but queues have been worse on Tuesday and today, with solid queues now on and up Jubilee Way. It seems that the ferry company reregistered its fleet to Cyprus as it wanted to use the EU for tax reasons, and notice for suc firings only apply to the country where the vessels were registered.

This is a legal grey area, but has made the Government and Brexit foolish, even if Brexit wasn't directly to blame.

Through the year, more checks are due on goods entering the country, making shortages ever more likely, and also more expensive. On top of this there is the National Insurance tax rise from the beginning of April, and at the same time the ending of the energy price cap which will see prices nearly double. Many families will not be able to cope. Today a food bank charity stated that it no longer could accept potatoes or other root vegetables, as people coupld no longer afford the energy to cook them.

There is a mini-budget today, in which a windfall tax on energy companies could be announced, like in France. But won't be. More likely a freeze in tax on fuel again, which is a drop in the ocean. France indeed has introduced a windfall tax on fuel companies and used that to keep energy proces low, with increases just at 4%, but because France is in the EU it can't do that, apparently, but did.

Yes, we did not have to leave the EU for policies like that, but kidded ourselves we did. And then the Government decided to prop up the energy companies while driving millions more families into poverty.