The UK has introduced a requirement to have an electronic travel authorization on order to visit the country. I just thought I'd have a look at it and see what I'll have to do if I'm ever to visit my mother again, and I'm in a queue. A queue on a website. Never seen that before (but it does seem very British).

It doesn't accept any method of payment which I use. Well that's just great.

What's more, the only way to make payment to the British government is to sign up to a choice of American payment services which will send some slice of the payment to the US. Why on earth have they done that?

Oh, and if your use the app, which they really want you to do, then you're phone has to meet their requirements. So it may also cost you a new phone to visit the UK in future. And if my phone stops meeting their requirements after I pay for an autorisation which should last two years? Who knows.

Thanks Brexit, the curse which keeps on cursing.
#brexit #eta #unitedkingdom

Another Brexit fiasco.... British cheeses failed to get to the World Cheese Awards in Portugal as they failed to clear customs in time (now being from a non-EU country).

In the scale of the disasters of Brexit its not going to to be a big thing (although it will be for the frustrated cheese makers), but is emblematic of how myopic the Brexiters were about the impact of their successful plan to leave Europe....

#brexit #cheese #food

theguardian.com/food/2024/nov/…

UK cheeses miss out on international prize after getting stuck in customs

At the World Cheese Awards in Portugal, British entries were conspicuous by their absence after failing to clear import controls

^{Tomé Morrissy-Swan (The Guardian)}

Yes, the mood has shifted against Brexit. But the road back to Brussels is long and hard | #Brexit
theguardian.com/politics/2023/…

"Brexit is no longer an abstract future goal, where coming benefits can be talked up, while potential drawbacks are dismissed as partisan pessimism. Brexit is now a lived reality, whose frictions and costs are a daily experience, and whose promised gains have not arrived."

#UK #Politics

Yes, the mood has shifted against Brexit. But the road back to Brussels is long and hard

Three years on, the reality of the split with the EU has changed minds. But dashed hopes could come to haunt Labour, too

^{Robert Ford (The Guardian)}