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Originally Posted by backofbeyond
I'm not convinced it's that necessary tbh. Nobody stops me when I drive from France to Belgium, Holland, Germany, Italy or Spain (or any combination thereof). Their societies are not falling apart (any more than ours anyway) because of open borders and it's not as if we don't have any experience of it - you can go from the Republic of Ireland to the UK (Northern Ireland) and all you see is a signpost. If terrorism was the major concern you'd think that would be one border where everyone was strip searched.
It's just island mentality. We (They) keep track of everyone's movements and cross reference travel documents (like ferry bookings) with actual movement because they can - it's easy with only half a dozen ferry routes and a few airlines. It wouldn't be so easy if there were a thousand roads over a land border with France.
What Shengen Europeans think when they arrive at Dover God only knows. Not only does the place look like a Borstal as built by Top Gear, they're treated as guilty until proved innocent by a bunch of grim faced prison guards.  For the sake of the tourist industry I can only hope some of it gets lost in translation.
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Well somehow we went way  and the question of the OP has been pretty much answered in any case.
So, there is no point in pursuing this particular line -- if it is of interest, then the BBC iPlayer can bring up a programme called "bitter lake" which, to me, says why nation states are about the best we humans can manage at present; by no means perfect but that's more or less what Churchill said about democracy.
You will need to set aside over two hours of your life for the full bitter lake, but it is worth it.
And yes, the whole of Dover exudes a dismal air;basically it is in decline like many other seaside towns of the UK.
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Dave
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