Anger of 10,000 lorry drivers ‘held hostage’ in Covid Christmas standoff
Juan Andrés had braced himself for what promised to be an atypical vacation season. But the lorry driver from southern Spain by no means imagined that Christmas Day could be spent in his cab tucking right into a ham and cheese sandwich – amongst provisions handed out by the British army – as he inched in the direction of the Channel.
“I would describe it as a kidnapping,” stated the 52-year-old when requested concerning the diplomatic deadlock that left him stranded on British roads for practically per week. As many as 10,000 lorries from across Europe have been caught after France quickly closed its border over fears of a fast-spreading coronavirus variant, reopening solely to these drivers who might present a unfavourable coronavirus take a look at.
In his 18 years as a driver, Andrés had all the time meticulously deliberate his routes in order that he may very well be dwelling for Christmas. This 12 months was no exception – after dropping off a cargo of frozen items in Northamptonshire final Sunday, a return supply was meant to deliver him to Seville in time to spend Christmas along with his spouse, kids and three-year-old grandchild.
Instead he discovered himself snarled in a line of lorries that stretched into the hundreds alongside England’s M20 motorway, depending on the meals rations in his truck and bogs that have been few and much between. “The few they have are in a really bad state, and really dirty” he stated.
The time ticked by slowly, punctuated by a slight advance of 50 or 100 metres each 10 minutes or so alongside the gridlocked freeway. “The closer you get to the crossing, the more garbage you see in the ditch,” he stated.
Some 1,300 miles away in Seville, his spouse, Toñy Cardeilhac Pérez, was indignant. “He’s trapped on the highway and nobody has come by to see if he’s OK,” she stated. “We called him when we were preparing Christmas lunch, and he was eating a bag of hazelnuts. It broke my heart.”
Officials had relaxed the rules to permit households to collect at Christmas. “We had been really looking forward to it. But it was really hard to sit at a table and pretend to be happy and calm when you know that he’s stranded somewhere,” she stated. “You don’t know if he has food or if he has a bathroom he can use. You feel completely powerless.”
On Friday afternoon – after Andrés had spent 47 hours on the motorway – the household acquired its first bit of excellent news in days. Negative take a look at in hand, he had been cleared to cross into France. Another 25 hours or so of driving and he could be dwelling. “We’re waiting for this nightmare to end,” stated his spouse. “I just want to see him.”
Thousands of different heavy items automobiles managed to cross the Channel on Friday, bringing an finish to the dystopian scenes of miles of stalled lorries and huge parking heaps plagued by vans that had performed out throughout elements of southern England.
As he launched into the lengthy drive dwelling, Andrés questioned if these photographs might need been exactly the purpose. “I’m not convinced this was all only about the variant. Even at the height of the pandemic we were coming and going and circulating without any problems,” he stated. “But all of this happened at the same time that the UK was in negotiations with the EU.”
Echoing a view expressed by other lorry drivers, he suspected that the border closure might have been partly prompted by a want to bolster to the UK how disruptive it could have been to depart the EU single market and customs union and not using a deal.
“I don’t know if politics were at play,” stated Andrés. “But whatever it was, the lorry drivers were the ones who ended up paying for it.”
Many extra lorries have been allowed to cross the Channel yesterday, however hauliers warn: “It’s not over yet”. Congestion continued to ease on the Port of Dover and Eurotunnel, however extra who held off leaving for the border over the festive interval are anticipated to hitch the queue quickly. Duncan Buchanan, coverage director on the Road Haulage Association stated: “At the moment, it’s just a case of keep going because we need to make sure we can get as many people out as possible.”
