UK Ministers plan for a ‘practice traffic jam’ to prepare for no deal Brexit: Up to 150 lorries will be sent from Manston Airport to Dover during Monday’s rush hour in last minute test.
• The test will see up to 150 lorries sent down the A256 at 8am and 11am
• The exercise is designed to check plans for using Manston as a huge lorry park
• Officials need to work out how fast to release lorries using ‘Operation Brock’
• Contingency plan is intended to be used if Dover-Calais route seizes up in March
• A no deal Brexit could cause miles of tailbacks on both sides of the Channel port
Up to 150 lorries will be sent from Manston Airport to Dover during rush hour on Monday in a test to see if Britain is ready for a no deal Brexit.
The exercise will test the idea of using Manston as a huge lorry park if a no deal causes congestion at Dover because of delays sending goods to Calais.
Congestion at the Channel ports caused by the reintroduction of customs checks on goods has been one of the most commonly cited negative impacts of a no-deal withdrawal from the EU at the end of March.
In the event of congestion, lorries will first be parked on the M20 under Operation Stack in a similar way to when bad weather or strikes close the Dover-Calais route. Once that is full as far as Ashford, trucks would be sent to Manston.
The news came after it was reported that Theresa May was due to speak with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker on Friday as she seeks added flexibility in the Withdrawal Agreement.
MPs are due to debate the PM’s Brexit deal on Wednesday ahead of a meaningful vote the following week but the EU has yet to offer any changes.
Source: Daily Mail
Today it is 81 days left to Brexit, when United Kingdom leaves the European Union.
Next week UK will have its vote in the Parliament, House of Commons, on the deal on the table. Will it be possible to get a majority for this deal? It looks difficult. But nothing is impossible. What happens if it is a no to the deal?
Right now it looks like UK then will be leaving the EU without a deal, we will have a no-deal crash-out.
In the debate there have been discussions saying that leaving on what is called “WTO terms” would be equally good or better than leaving with the present negotiated deal. Ehat people then forget is the non-tariff barriers. This is what bothers me.
If UK would leave with no-deal, UK becomes a thord country over night and should be treated like any other third country in line with the EU Union Customs Code.
A deal would at the end of the day mean the same thing but at a later stage, and it would provide time to get border processing and procedures in place.
So to large extent it is on this perspective a matter of time. I have great respect for the different views on if this is a good deal for UK, or for the EU or not. This can naturally be debated. There are cost of being in a Customs Union and Customs territory with free movement of goods, and there are costs being outside such an arrangement. What is best for an individual country is decided by how well the country – in comparison with the common policy of the union – can negotiate trade deals and how well these can be implemented (often forgotten) in relation to modern customs, border and trade policies, procedures and processes.
When it comes to content of a UK-EU Brexit deal from a trade perspective , that still remains to be negotiated under the framework of ‘future relations’. So that is not known for the moment.
What we do know is that everybody involved in trade with UK need to prepare for both a no-deal and a deal scenario. There are 81 days to go.
Hello, dear readers. I am back. After some days of rest and re-loading of the batteries (and travelling the world), I am back with news on this blog about; Customs, borders, trade, development, modernization, music, sport and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
I am looking forward to meeting you here, there and everywhere in 2019.
I have a feeling there will be some articles on Brexit also this year. Just a feeling.
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