Originally Posted by
Nayef
It’s largely painfully unaware privileged western travelers without a hint about their passport privilege and complaining “as a matter of principle” despite these processes taking almost no time or effort yet acting outraged in a way where you’d think they’re being forced to apply for a visa needing to gather a zillion documents and go to an embassy or application support center in person only to be granted a single-entry visa that’s the length of stated trip or something. They’ll soon get used to it though and as far as I know the only pain of the ETA application thus far is that the app can be bad at reading the biometric chip but even that is still preferable to needing to do all the visa work plus grilling.
The bosses at LHR have been complaining again about it though I’m sure once ETIAS rolls around it’ll very likely be necessary just to transit through other hubs such as FRA, AMS, CDG, etc all the same as the other ETA programs so it’s not like LHR will be singled out unless ETIAS is announced to be unnecessary for transit. Even then the idea that people will be put off from transiting at LHR because of the ETA is another marker of privilege since they can’t be bothered to do this quick application or maybe even learn about its existence.
The reason "privileged Western travelers" have not needed to "gather a zillion documents" and visit an embassy for a tourist visa to the UK is because they don't abuse the privilege of visiting the UK. This is not true of the citizens of the countries who require visas--that requirement was imposed because visa-free status leads many travelers from the Third World to claim asylum or attempt to work illegally in the UK. This is exactly what happened recently with Jordanian citizens who enjoyed the ability to enter the UK with an ETA rather than a visa. The benefit lasted all of a few months because Jordanians were wildly abusing it (claiming asylum, for example.)
No American, Canadian, Japanese or Bruneian citizen is going to claim asylum in the UK. This is why the entry requirements for citizens of such countries wishing to visit the UK have always been much lighter than for citizens of other nations.
The problem with the ETA is not that it is equally onerous to applying for a tourist visa (it isn't, nor should it be) but because it attempts to solve a problem that doesn't exist. The citizens who are affected by ETA are not the people the UK needs to worry about. For crying out loud, the UK is being swamped with boats of illegal arrivals and yet the government thinks it is providing "national security" by slapping an ETA on Western tourists.