Brexit Border Bonus: Brussels is delivering exactly what we demanded with fingerprinting and facial biometrics

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Perhaps you did not vote to Leave the European Union – or perhaps you did but are now having second thoughts?

Keep the faith. Two years ago this month, the previous government proclaimed The Benefits of Brexit in a 105-page document.

So you didn’t have to, I delved deep into the brimming book of delights – which I called BoB for short – to identify all the travel highlights.

As you will have observed, since leaving the EU we have acquired “a simpler, better railway”. The main rail unions, which campaigned enthusiastically for Brexit, can celebrate that fact along with us lucky passengers.

“Brexit is enabling us to improve the experience of UK air travellers,” the government asserted – and spelt out the key benefits. They hardly need stating, since the transformation has been so clear to us all. But just to quote BoB, the airline passenger now benefits from:

Tick.

One aspect that BoB did not dwell upon (perhaps because of the natural modesty and understatement of Brexiteers) was the wonders that we have achieved with passports and border crossings. It is high time they got credit for what they have achieved.

Arch-Brexiteer and the first Brexit secretary, David Davis, was spot on when he assured us: “There will be no downside to Brexit, only a considerable upside.”

Today I want to celebrate the way that the eurocrats in Brussels have caved in to our demands for more red tape.

After the democratic vote to leave the European Union, Boris Johnson’s government prepared an “oven-ready deal” that made key demands on the EU. We insisted on becoming “third-country nationals”, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the travelling folk of Venezuela, Tonga and Paraguay as we queue for passport control.

As you may have experienced yourself, we have won the right to spend more time with our passports while waiting to be stamped in and out of the Schengen Area.

Our newly acquired status as third-country nationals also secured an entitlement to spend less time in the European Union. Frankly, 90 days in any 180 days is more than enough to spend in Spain, France, Greece, etc.

To the credit of the steadfast negotiating team who trounced Michel Barnier and his team, they have reinvented the golden years of the 1960s and 70s in limiting the amount of interaction with Johnny Foreigner. In those heady decades, the mechanism was the £50 limit on cash holidaymakers could take abroad. Today, money has given way to time, and no British passport holder will be forced to endure more than three months in a row in the EU – with a guaranteed three months off as respite.

Another much missed aspect of 20th-century life is returning as a Brexit Border Bonus: the thrill of sealed transport. Starting with the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, trains running from West Germany via East Germany to West Berlin were sealed at the border.

The Iron Curtain may have long rusted away. But on 10 November this year – the day after the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall – the UK will bring back the concept. This time, it will apply to coach passengers at the Port of Dover.

That is a consequence of the entry-exit system, due to come into effect that day, and which we demanded should apply to us.

Every British traveller entering the EU will be fingerprinted and photographed: a festival of identity, I call it.

At the Eastern Docks of Dover, compressed between the White Cliffs and the Channel, there is not enough room for this celebration of individuality to take place for coach passengers. So instead the happy travellers will be processed in the old Western Docks and their conveyance sealed for the glorious drive from West to East, just like back in the DDR.

Once the entry-exit system is up and running, six months later, the final Brexit Border Bonus will come to fruition: the right to pay €7 (£6) and fill in an online form for an “Etias” before venturing into the twilight zone of the European Union.

In the grand old days of Imperial Russia, visiting Brits were obliged to announce their travel plans in the pages of the St Petersburg Gazette.

We can look forward to the 21st-century equivalent of letting those Continentals know we’re on the way. Lucky them – lucky us.

Simon Calder, also known as The Man Who Pays His Way, has been writing about travel for The Independent since 1994. In his weekly opinion column, he explores a key travel issue – and what it means for you.