Here is the News.

Maybe bacause Ireland is in the EU?

Slightly tangential but I saw someone make a point yesterday that framed things in a useful way I’d not really thought of before. We hear a lot about ‘western civilisation’. Obviously it’s generally citied by racists to justify their racism… but the status of religion in the US really marks their version of western civilisation as something that is entirely unlike anywhere else that would count, for those purposes, as ‘the west’. It is a deep and fundamental difference between the culture and civilisation of the UK and the USA.

We, here, must know that Britain is far more culturally aligned with the likes of The Netherlands and Germany than the USA but most people don’t see that because, I guess, the language and Hollywood. Same for Australia and, I guess, probably Canada too. We’re just very very different and religion is a huge part of that directly and, perhaps, indirectly (because maybe the way Americans cling to various other ideas with religious fervour is because the status of actual religion has warped their minds).

That is true. But I think there’s an exemption (which EU people don’t have) when coming into Schengen in the first place.

Or maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about. Who can say?

I'm not sure there would. The number of Brits visiting Europe is many times more than other third countries and so the system would have coped much better with the lower numbers if no Brexit.

It's a non-Schengen thing isn't it, not non-EU?

Irish are exempt as members of the EU, despite not being in Schengen, so no.

Well it is the job of the system to cope with the demand put upon it. The demand cause by British travellers would have been predictable.

Except the project was started 15+ years ago before a Brexit cute had even better considered.

So by the time Brexit became real the system was already mostly built to cope with the smaller numbers.

Obviously it's a government (and EU at that) project so is bound to be badly designed and managed, but Brexit is definitely a massive spanner in its works.

That seems a poor excuse when they've had 10 or 6 years (vote or 'got brexit done') to adapt.

Wait… so the EU is acting rationally and in the interests of it’s people if it devises a border system that makes less attractive for people from the very large economy next door to visit?

If that were the case it would make them fucking idiots. Fortunately it is not the case. They just rolled out a new system that couldn’t keep up, and didn’t have a backup plan. A very normal thing for governments and companies to do.

My experience of dealing with the EU and implementation projects you probably need a zero on the end of those years to allow changes to occur.

They would give us free or frictionless movement if it was reciprocal but "we" don't want that.

The intention of the new border system predates Brexit, so it’s got fuck all to do with any of that.