Older readers – particularly those that have travelled the highways and byways of the U.K. – may well remember ‘foreign’ lorries as we used to call them, travelling with blue T.I.R. plates displayed on the sealed doors of box vans and containers that had travelled from countries all over Europe. The T.I.R. system was founded in 1949 to facilitate trade and transport, first as an intergovernmental agreement among European countries who had fragile post war relationships and later, as we now say, a global convention that helped facilitate frictionless trade across borders.
At the same time vehicles entering one country from another were required to display national identification plates as agreed at the Geneva Convention 1948, the oval white plate black letters showing GB for example were once a familiar requirement on vehicles travelling to Europe. Now all this changed when we eventually, without being asked, joined the E.U. Brussels directed that all vehicle licences and number plates should be harmonised for, as they called it, ‘ever closer union,’ requiring that their design and format number plates should be used by all member states. This caused much consternation here as many drivers refused to use EU number plates.
Now I may be wrong, but I was given to understand that we had left membership of the E.U. this year. There seems to have been a little local difficulty with what Boris keeps telling us are our ‘friends and neighbours’ across the English Channel (which apparently according to our Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps is now call the ‘short straights’), with trucks and vehicles being delayed and various items confiscated as drivers have tried to import their lunch in the Netherlands (formally known as Holland to many people here) or by, according to mainstream media sources, ‘grinning’ customs officers in France refusing clearance and entry because a form has been incorrectly completed, or a container has been found to be overweight.
Why then has not the T.I.R. system been reintroduced or required for goods vehicles entering the United Kingdom? The system allows vehicles to be inspected at source and allows for delivery to four locations. All under ‘Customs Control’. If we are not now members of the E.U. why are E.U. registered vehicles allowed to enter the United Kingdom without being required to carry NATO-style country identification plates, as they are required to do so, when, for example, travelling to other non-member countries.
It’s not as if we now have full access to E.U. databases that have the registration details of all vehicles, is it? I mean how could that be allowed under E.U. and U.K. data protection laws, and hasn’t Boris told the E.U. ‘High Representative’ that diplomatic status will not be granted as the E.U. is a trading bloc and not a nation state?
Can we look forward then to all E.U. staff being designated ‘diplomats by their ‘home country’ and displaying their country-of-origin plates on their prestige vehicles if wanting the status of ‘Diplomatic Immunity,’ which basically allows holders to ignore protocols and laws of the host nation with ‘immunity.’
They could always, as their predecessors were apt to do, display C.D. or ‘ Corps Diplomatique’ plates on their vehicles. Trying to explain that to a civil enforcement officer or police officer these days should try their diplomatic patience to the limit.
It is all very confusing, but then this has been a confusing week. When not carrying stories about truck drivers’ sandwiches being confiscated at the ‘Dutch Border’ the media, both print and broadcast, have been beside themselves writing with undisguised glee about the exit of President Trump and the return to normality and decency with the inauguration of President Biden. Try as I might I saw little about the fact that Trump still had a 51 percent approval rating (which is higher than the new President’s) and at the election received more votes than any other President, but then like most things that occur in the United States, little is understood by the masses here who seem oblivious to the fact that their opinions are formed by political wannabes masquerading as broadcast and print journalists purveying the group speak of their own bubble and who never venture into the world of diverse opinion that actually exists away from social media sites and the well healed dinner tables of the media class living and working in, as we used to say, each other’s pockets inside the M25.
Stay tuned tomorrow for Part 2.
Photo by Richard.Says A1(M) TRUCKS 
How about a boycott of EU crap. target one a week .
Starting with marx n Sparx sweeties made in Germany for crissakes.
So, yet another Boris failure. How many more are we yet to discover?
Holland is a region in the Western Netherlands.
It’s like calling the whole of the UK “England”.
The Scots don’t like it and neither do the rest of the Dutch.
The word “Dutch” only arises because we confused it with “Deutch” in the past. They call themselves Nederlanders.
We have saved European bacon on at least six occasions in the past centuries.
The French in particular don’t like to be reminded of this.
I can see a situation arising when it might be necessary again.
Nice one Norman. Apart from suitable identification according to OUR rules, surely foreign lorries, wagons, or whatever they’re called nowadays, should pay some sort of tolls towards the upkeep of our roads.
And where do they fill up with fuel? If our drivers have to buy their packed lunches, perhaps theirs should buy ‘our’ diesel!
You missed one though. Now that we are NOT one of them anymore, we are no longer allowed to call ourselves U.K. on their ‘forms’! That is VERBOTEN. We MUST now call ourselves G.B.!
Pauline……I agree we are Great Britain, not the UK or United Kingdom. And you’re right now we are out of that so called club where they pull all of the punches, we SHOULD be charging a toll to ALL foreign HGV’s to help pay for our crumbling road system. Don’t expect anything from our so called prime minister on this, he is probably practising how to throw a cream pie and using this within his next job application to Billy Smarts Circus……..
“We MUST now call ourselves GB.!”…… Is that because the EU doesn’t recognise Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom? But instead has assigned the whole of Ireland to be a single EU Region, like Wales or Scotland? And Great Britain includes Wales, Scotland and England, but not Ireland ?
TIR means Transcontinental Internationale Routiers. You are right at one time all large HGV’s coming off the ferries had those blue and white plates fixed to the rear of the trailer, and very few these days have them displayed. The clown in residence in Downing Street refers to the French and Germans as ‘our friends and partners’ amongst other pointless phrases. Its just like the other day when he went overboard in his praise of Joe Biden when he came out with ‘Great, super and fantastic and great for Britain and the USA’. Everything that he says and does has to be treated with a pinch of salt. If these EU countries were truly our friends and partners they would not be treated us the way they are right now. They are anything but friends and partners, and I am glad to see the back of them to be honest. I have no intention of ever visiting these countries again and will be buy 100% British. This country has nothing to apologise for, having saved the continents bacon on two occasions during the 20th Century, and this is how they repay us. What we are in desperate need of here in England at least is proper leadership, and we are simply not getting it. To Johnson its just a game, and we deserve so much better.
Well said Colin, my sentiments entirely.
We must now fight for the United Kingdom.
I care for nowhere in Europe anyway.