Guernsey Press

Pressure to open borders will grow

WELCOME to the new normal. It’s much like the old normal, except better appreciated.

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Parties, shopping, hugs, pubs and gyms. Schools hard at work, nightclubs open and music concerts drawing big audiences. There’s even some live sport.

A time traveller in their DeLorean gullwing would struggle to tell the difference between Guernsey in June 2020 and any of the last few summers. A few new buildings, some strangely redundant stickers advising two-metre distancing – but not much else.

Except it isn’t the same. The Bailiwick bubble is a false reality more like Jim Carrey’s The Truman Show than Back to the Future.

It is safe, but it is not real life.

For many people that is fine. Guernsey is a beautiful island and there are worse places to spend the summer. They have jobs, friends and family. A year of living local will do them no harm. Safety is their top priority and it is a huge relief to feel confident that the danger of infection has receded.

But for anyone connected with aviation and tourism the current way of life is disastrous. Cafes, hotels, travel agents and tourist attractions can get some trade from locals, but nowhere near enough for long-term solvency.

Finance too cannot stay isolated for ever.

The pressure to ease open the borders is already tremendous. Too many people’s livelihoods depend upon it.

That urgency will increase early next month as Jersey looks to open its borders, potentially to France as well as the UK.

At that point, the consensus that has characterised the Bailiwick’s response to Covid-19 will come under strain. Some people will weigh up the health security benefits of closed borders and find them wanting when measured against the prospect of foreign holidays and the incoming tourist pound.

It is a decision that asks questions of both a political and public health nature. The timing and method of easing into Phase 6 and border opening is the trickiest decision of the lockdown release.

For now though islanders can enjoy being able to walk into work, shops and public buildings without the need for a mask or a huge social gap.

It is not to be taken for granted.