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Travels in Europe today gives a taste of what life was like under previous dictators

Roger Watson

I’ve been to the future, and I didn’t like it. My job requires that I travel and, since travel restrictions have been eased slightly, I have been able to make two international visits to countries in Europe. First to Slovenia and this week to Italy. International travel has changed and—even for those foolish enough to be vaccinated (and that includes me)—Covid tests are still required in addition to an extra layer of paperwork that requires at least a university level education to comprehend. We may classify countries as Green (strictly speaking ‘non-Red’) and have reasonably standard conditions for re-entry, but those countries have their own sets of rules around entry. Again, a university education is a helpful prerequisite to negotiating the systems. It is all designed to make travel as hard as possible and as alarming as possible. Each time you log in to check the rules you are always presented first with the worst-case scenario related to travel out of the UK such as the rules for the unvaccinated (essentially don’t bother) and on return with the rules for returning from Red List countries (why would anyone bother?).

I used to travel several times annually to mainland China, so I am well used to completing endless forms and ‘presenting my papers’ but, where travel to Europe used to be a pleasure, it has now been turned into a frenzy of form-filling with anomalous rules about when you may complete the forms. European countries permit you to complete the forms (the European Passenger Location Form) any time up to 24 hours prior to departure, provided you have the necessary details. Slovenia does not require proof of Covid status prior to entry but Italy does, and the test must be taken and officially certified within 48 hours of departure. If you are still awake…for return to the UK, the UK form must be completed within 48 hours of departure. Returning from Slovenia you need to take a Covid test within 24 hours of departure, but no test is required prior to departure from Italy. On return to UK from both—in fact to be permitted to board a flight for return—you must have pre-booked, and paid, for a Covid test and be able to demonstrate that with an approved booking number. So far so good.

I have reported on my visit to Slovenia which, while all flights were marred by the enforced wearing of masks and the presentation of a vaccine passport at the hotel, it was otherwise relatively easy to get about and masks were barely in evidence. But move southwest to Italy and you wonder if Mussolini has been returned to power. Apart from taxis—ironically as you are usually crammed in with your fellow passengers—there is absolutely no travel by public transport and, strictly speaking (although not universally enforced) visit to a restaurant without presenting what the Italians euphemistically refer to as the Green Pass; it is just a vaccine passport. I may have had one and, of course, had to present it. But it felt most unnatural and uncomfortable to know that successfully reaching my destination was dependent on proving my health status. Frankly, while I expect no sympathy, I felt like a collaborator.

Most impressive, and for all the wrong reasons, was the virtually saturation levels of mask wearing. It was enforced at the railway station, by who I can only assume was a ‘mask marshall’, on entering the platform. But even more distressing, without any apparent enforcement, in the university where I was teaching, mask wearing was 100% as it was in restaurants, until people were seated. Many people wear masks outside and the vast majority of people have a mask visible, usually under the chin. I questioned colleagues and students about mask wearing and Covid measures in general and they, universally, seemed completely unconcerned. Asked when they thought restrictions would end, they just shrugged, again seemingly unconcerned. They were aware of recent protests, for example in Trieste, but seemed remarkably uninterested in the issues. It struck me that the future is not simply about masks and vaccine passports. It is about the almost complete subjugation of a population. Whoever is in charge of all this you have to hand it to them. We didn’t see this coming, but it’s here. I have no control over the laws of other countries and little interest in them. I can choose to go or not and take the consequences of either decision. But one thing is certain, whatever the consequences, I will never present a vaccine passport to anyone or wear a mask to go about my lawful business in my own country.

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