It wasn’t much more than that to enter France. It’s basically a quick passport check. Nothing more than that.
It’s a bit more than that now. That’s what is making a busy period into a nightmare.
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Actually that’s exactly how it worked before. The French customs kiosks at Dover were always unmanned and the UK officers, although mostly manned, would give a quick view of your passport at best, since who was entering France was not exactly their problem. Never scanned on the Dover side. I recall getting through to France without a check at all on occasion. I know because I got stranded in France once as I actually forgot to bring my passport and was questioned by officers trying to get back across from Calais.
Going from Calais to Dover though has always had a much heavier check even prior to Brexit, due to UK always having greater restrictions on entering the country, on people and pets for example. So for me the Calais side was always slower prior to Brexit. On top, UK customs kiosks on the French side over the years have always been understaffed or the customs staff have adopted the French lazy work ethic 
- its not uncommon for a single kiosk only to be open in Sunday afternoon return journeys which is the busiest time of the week.
The reason why this is such a problem on the Dover port compared to the Calais port is that the UK travellers tend to want to leave on a very specific time to take advantage of the holidays, so there’s a made rush over a short number of days, then the returning travellers won’t necessarily all come back on the same day so there will be less strain on the Calais side.
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I think it’s every bit as likely to be a combination of additional checks (although why there should be baffles me as all of your movements are stored in your passport data), staff shortages which haven’t been fully addressed since Covid cutbacks, and excessive movement of people.
Wouldn’t be surprised if the new popular working from home and 4 day week practices are also affecting things
Thanks for shedding light on that.
Must be different from airport passport control then, never once been through any airport that only gave a cursory glance at my passport. Always either scanned by the officer, or the self service machine.
Wouldn’t that help things as there are more potential travel days? I’m assuming that the checks will be faster once the ETIAS scheme is up and running. Next year?
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Passports are also used as security ID. For flights within the EU it has always been possible to fly with a national ID card instead.
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Like WhatsApp your passport photo to Roger in his kitchen? 
Not from the UK it hasn’t
That’s fairly normal - land crossing into the US sometimes doesn’t even require presentation of ID, whereas US Customs and Border Protection keep proctologists on staff at the damned airports. Ferries seem to land somewhere in between.
Not for UK citizens because they don’t have a national ID card. Those countries in the EU that had ID cards could always fly using that alone - including to Britain when it was an EU member.
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But in the US you can own an assault rifle but not bring a Kinder egg into the country, so not the best country for sensible comparisons
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What if the contents of the Kinder egg assembled into an AR-15?
The main smuggling point is from Canada, we don’t have ready access to AR-15s…
Yep. And presumably the bulk of people on either side of that will vote according to what they think is best for the country.
I don’t think i’ve ever been asked for my passport when entering england.
From Wales?
Ireland,at least a couple of dozen times.Don’t recall being asked on entry from Finland,France or Spain either.All airport arrivals.Everywhere else i,ve been seems to ask,including my own country when coming home,but never england.The wife and kids like to get the stamps on their passports but of all the countries they have been to england is the only one missing.
Hmmm, I’d have your memory issue investigated if I were you.
You simply don’t, ever, enter the UK from a foreign country and not have to go through passport control.
Would you count Ireland as a foreign country?Flew into Liverpool,Manchester and Birmingham many times when going to watch games and not once was i asked.
I haven’t been over since 2019 though.