Daytrip to The Hague

Written by Elwyn Lloyd Jones, Rejoin Party Candidate for Sevenoaks.

To explore my old haunts since David Cameron called the disastrous Brexit Referendum in 2016, to see how things have changed; and as a kind of a Benchmark before the introduction of EES, Digital Visas, and ETIAS, I took this day-trip to The Hague. The first thing to note is that the British Eurolines is no more; and the formerly proud British P&O Ferries is a pale shadow of its former self. Their places have been taken by the German Flixbus, and the Danish DFDS Ferries who have been growing significantly with new ships and new routes, e.g. Newcastle to Amsterdam.

It was after the School Holidays, so things were quiet. We left Victoria Coach Station at 22:00 BST, arrived at Dover at about Midnight, were whisked through Security and French Immigration to end-up with a long wait for the 02:00 BST sailing. I used my regular British Passport with about 18-months remaining validity. It received a regular French Inbound Visa stamp. The Ferry Company had a young staff who were all very welcoming, and the nice thing about travelling this way, was receiving a free meal-ticket which more than made up for the slightly higher ticket price. We arrived in Calais at 05:05 CEST. There was no French Customs Checks, so we continued our journey, stopping at Bruges and Ghent to pick-up or drop-off passengers. I noticed that we also had brief stops at or near the country borders. I don’t know whether this was a courtesy stop in case migration checks were needed, or simply to change drivers. In any case they were brief, and we quickly continued, arriving at The Hague Central Station at about 20 minutes after our scheduled arrival time of 09:30 CEST.

Driving through Belgium at sunrise lifted my heart to see the diversity of daily activities and industries, some even supplying our daily delights back home in the UK, fields were under cultivation, wind turbines were turning, and farmers were doing a good job. – The Netherlands, on the other hand, was a bit run-down with abandoned green-houses, and over-grown solar farms. (The Dutch green-house growers suffered badly with the fuel-price hikes that followed the sanctions on Russian gas.) One surprise was a 5¢ plastics surcharge above the listed price on fast-foods. A number of pro-Palestinian Flags were in prevalence; and on hearing I lived in England, one black guy had a go at me with some ribald comments – obviously venting his frustration at Britain’s treatment of foreigners.

To return, we left The Hague Central Station at 22:55 CEST, stopped at Ghent for passengers. At Calais we went through a thorough Security Scan, French Outbound checks (which included an Exit Visa stamp on my same regular British Passport), and followed by British Immigration, which surprisingly included a quick scan of all Visas, i.e. of all countries ever visited. Two passengers were set aside for interrogation. Again, there was a long wait for the 07:05 CEST sailing. – On board was very pleasant, not at all crowded, and a free meal which included a full English breakfast. We arrived back at Victoria Coach Station nearly a full hour after our scheduled arrival time of 09:00 BST.

Roaming

I only use Vodafone pre-pay, and one of my missions was to exchange my Dutch SIM card for the nano version. The nice thing about having a Dutch SIM Card is that roaming (including the UK) is free, and the number never expires. Not so the UK SIM card, if you want to use it in Europe, you need to buy 100 Calling Minutes for £5 or 200 Text Messages for £4 and they are valid for 8 days, and what you don’t use, you lose. But I was only there for only one day!

If you venture into Data Use, the story is different. At home in the UK you can use unlimited data for £2, which is valid for the rest of the day. (I have subsequently learned that NL also offers unlimited daily domestic data for €4, but you have to buy it.) This is ideal to get one out of a fix! – But, to roam from the UK you need to buy 3GB of Data for £9, which again is valid for 8 days. – To roam from the NL you need to buy 3GB of Data for €15 in a package called a Blox, which can be used throughout the EU, including the UK, and is valid for a whole Month.

In the early days, it used to be quite conspicuous that the smart black guys, almost in unison, would change their SIM cards every time we crossed a national boundary, while the whites from Western Europe would lay back and let themselves be screwed by roaming charges. It’s now been long established that a multi-SIM telephone is an absolute must for the International Traveller, and especially after Brexit. The Telecoms Companies will try and lock you into their Network; but the Indian ‘phone Retailers are the undoubtedly world leaders in multi-SIM devices, with even 7-SIM ’phones being available in India.

Booze Cruise

I tried to do a price comparison by dividing Wines into three categories: Fine Wines (Burgundy), Popular Wines (Beaujolais), and Cheap Plonk. There is no point in comparing cheap plonk, because I know from experience that cheap European wines are much cheaper (and better quality) than UK cheap wines; and this is because of Duty, which for typical wines is £24.77 per litre of alcohol, so at the low end of the market, all the money goes to the government, leaving nothing for the suppliers. In my travels, I did not find Beaujolais in any of the shops. But for Burgundy, I looked at Bourgogne (White Burgundy), which came out at about £18 to £20 per bottle in the UK, and €12 per bottle in The Hague. But this is not entirely a fair comparison, because there are many different Estates, Vintages, and Brands of Fine Wine – and I’m no expert.

For a sample of Lady’s Cosmetics, I found the on-board shop price to be the same as the UK shop price.

The problem with the on-board shopping is that everything you buy, you’ll have to carry to the car by hand. This means that they concentrate on high-value spirits where the savings are a maximum. They offered a wide range of spirits at £10 per litre bottle, but if you shop around, you can find the same price in the UK. Then, on top of that, they offer two for the price of one; which is great if you are into drinking the hard stuff. But, it’s a bit self defeating, because with such quantities, you won’t need to come back for quite a few months.

My favourite beer is Leffe, but I’m getting quite suspicious about the Leffe you can buy in the Supermarkets here. Who would buy a 750 ml Bottle? And who would drink it out of a one pint Chalice? And also 6% proof is not right for Leffe. – So, I bought a bottle there and looked very closely. Yes, the genuine EU Leffe is 6.6% proof and sold in a 300 ml bottle (our regular bottle is 330 ml); so yes, they’ve been watering it down by 10% for the UK Market. The price was €1.37, but at Sainsbury you can get 12 bottles for £13, which is even cheaper. – I was not able to buy a proper Chalice, and Internet shopping has always been problematic. But hey, Amazon is improving all the time, so in the future we may not even need to travel to do our European Shopping.

Conclusion

EU price differences are generally small, and bringing goods back for personal use is easy, but otherwise it is difficult to know you’re getting the genuine product of satisfactory quality. While we worry about our own situation; businesses don’t care, and will always compete; and in business, size matters. While UK businesses struggle, we’ve seen how: DFDS BV, Flix SE, AB InBev, and even Amazon are slowly improving their position day-by-day. We have a Government that either protects Shareholders, or Trade Unionists. But a good business listens neither to the shareholder nor the trade unionist, but is a combination of one or more highly skilled individuals (each in a class of their own) working together as a team. They need resources and defences, but we’ve never really had a Government that understands that. – I can only see the decline continue as skills leave the country and entities from outside take-over. This is the true cost of Brexit.