Braking news
Post-Brexit , Issue 1539 BREXIT secretary Michael Gove's uncanny ability to make the worst of a bad job is in full post-transition-period evidence in Kent.

A perfect shitstorm of undelivered infrastructure, flawed IT systems and mushrooming bureaucracy has led to drivers queuing for hours to get out of the country. Last Friday evening, the “inland border facility” at Ashford was reported to be in “total gridlock” – and this was with levels of freight said to be around half typical pre-Brexit levels. Slashing economic activity while drastically increasing the mayhem is quite a double achievement.

Around 80 percent of trucks heading to Calais are “in transit” to countries beyond France, but usually still within the EU. Post-Brexit, this brings a raft of new paperwork and dependency on yet another IT system, the New Computerised Transit System (NCTS). This is actually quite an old system, designed for less voluminous transit beyond the EU's borders, and regularly crashes under the new demands. Trucks turning up for checks then have to wait for it to be fixed – and often still don't meet its complex requirements. Other IT systems that were supposed to have made exporting easier are yet to be seen.

Arse and elbow
IT trouble is far from the only source of delay. Often lorries in transit don't have a “comprehensive customs guarantee” from a financier who says that if the goods don't reach their destination, they will cough up the VAT and customs duty that becomes due along the way. Without this, lorries have to turn around, park up and (expensively) arrange it.

All this happens at Waterbrook Park, an inadequate industrial estate pressed into service because the 1,700-capacity lorry park next door isn't ready– despite the four and a half years' notice (although drivers are sent their for the compulsory Covid testing that isn't helping, either). Drivers who often don't speak English address outsourced “border operators” (Mitie is recruiting at £10 per hour) who, one customs adviser says, “don't know their arse from their elbow”. With lorries sent around the park in a “joke” traffic management system, gridlock often ensues.

Sunlit uplands
The prophylactic to border chaos was supposed to have been Gove's Kent Access Permit, known as the Kermit, preventing lorries entering Kent without the right paperwork on pain of a £300 fine. This turns out to be another joke. By answering “yes” to a few online questions, Kermits are available without any evidence of the documents (the Eye's hack obtained one for a fictional HGV in two minutes). Hauliers are simply vouching for having the paperwork before they get it, so that they set off on their journeys rather than wait a few expensive hours. Too often they then hit the customs and border point without what's needed.

The harm to trade is growing. Logistics companies DB Schenker, DPD and Palletways have all “paused” imports into the UK to avoid delays and costs coming back the other way, while the Road Haulage Association tells the Eye that hauliers are turning down import jobs and sending lorries out of the UK empty rather than get mired in Kafkaesque scenes at Ashford. Quite a result for Britain's four Brexit ministers since 2016 and the £100m-plus they spent on management consultants preparing for those sunlit uplands.