The right wing Brexiters are proclaiming a win after the UK has decided to return to issuing their passports in a blue booklet in October 2019. The current maroon ones will still be issued even after the Brexit date in March, 2019, they will simply omit the European Union engrossment on the cover. The new blue ones will be only issued after a new printing contract begins in 2019. The cost? 500 million Pounds.
For some reason, the right wing and fervent Brexit supporters are claiming this as a win. The Sun, a far right wing UK newspaper has been campaigning on this issue since the EU referendum. Here is their story in which they claim a win. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5192542/uk-dark-blue-passport-back/
This tells me that Brexit really isn’t about economic efficiency outside the European Union when sovereignty is returned to Westminster rather than bureaucrats in Brussels. Brexit voters simply wanted to turn back the clock to a simpler time and rant against everything they don’t like in the current days. Just as Trump voters can celebrate a win on the “War on Christmas”, Brexit voters can get their passport back. Brexit voters simply wanted a scapegoat for their perceived struggles and the EU and immigrants were it. It was a vote for nostalgia and not a vote for common sense in the 21st century.
The color of a country’s passport is irrelevant. Yes, when standing in long passport control lines, I play “guess the country” when looking around my fellow travelers and seeing the different passports that people have in their hands. But, the color of a country’s passport can’t be relevant except for very cheap political theatre. I’m sure all the Leave voters will be delighted to know that North Korean passports are also blue.
In my opinion, this silly Brexit is nothing more than a bunch of older and/or uneducated people trying to stop the flow of progress. They can wax nostalgia about blue passports but forget about the days of hard border control. Brexit, for them, is an attempt to stop the world, they want to get off.
I think you’ve said it and there’s not much room there for debate.
I remember seeing a poll of reasons people voted brexit, and passport colors was quite high up (in fairness it was a poll where you could tick multiple options).
I think it was in The Times where they wrote a piece mocking the idea that a blue passport that may have more restrictive travel and work options in the EU, is better than a burgundy one thats one of the most useful passports you can own right now.
Personally if we’re going to change the passport color id love to see anything other than burgundy or navy blue, which are boring as old raas.
Navy blue means nothing to me as someone “only” 38.
[del]Madrid[/del]Brussels steals from us. The barbarians are restless, and the peasants, revolting. Blaming Outsiders for the ills of one’s society is a staple of long standing; many of the apparent economic reasons (such as the claims about NHS financing) made very little sense as soon as you spent five minutes examining them.
Most of this 500 million is production cost that would be spent whether the passport is redesigned or not, no? Even so, it seems high. How many passports is that?
Ironically, if I’m reading correctly, the passport printing contract may be subject to existing EU procurement rules, with the passports therefore possibly printed on the Continent.
The old dark blue passport was larger and made of stiff card. I remember showing it Continentals and they were quite envious of its size and design compared to their little ID cards. The new passport will retain the EU format size and introduce all kinds of anti-forgery gizmos to keep make life difficult for the forgers. We had a big commotion a few years ago over the introduction of ID cards (one of Blairs daft ideas) which was rejected, so they beefed up the security on the UK passport, made it more difficult to get and hiked its price.
The current passport costs £72 and the passport office is non too efficent when it comes to renewal if you need it quickly. Last time I had to go into the passport office in London Victoria and wait in line and then have my photo compared with my face. I was most amused to find that the British passport control officer in charge of the this process was a muslim lady in wearing a hijab and she seem quite concerned about the photo I had just taken of myself, apparently you have to look straight ahead, not even a slight angle presumably because their facial recognition systems and biometic algorithm was bought from some flim-flam US tech company. I am sure Brexiteers will be most impressed to have thier Britiishness checked in this way. Can’t be too careful.
I don’t doubt that we will see an increase in the cost of the passport and it will much touted as a ‘gold’ standard for stamping your ID with the UK moniker, as if that means anything these days.
The Continentals flit between the countries of the EU with a cheap little ID card, many don’t bother with full passports. They clearly don’t take their border security as seriously as the UK. I guess this comes from the fact that they don’t the good fortune to have water around the edges of their countries.
The colour of passports thing is the dumbest fucking piece of shit, but it’s the only thing the flailing Brexiteers have to announce. It’s not even an EU requirement, the dumb cunts.
And the old passport was as blue as a priest’s sock ie very, very, very, very, very, very, very blue ie black.
I read a report about changes in the US passport coming next year. One of the first sentences was a reassurance that there would be no change in color, which I found odd.
I doubt there would be much of an outrage if the color of the USA passport was changed. Only 36% of Americans even have a passport. I’d assume the demographics of passport holders in the USA don’t drastically overlap with those who get outraged over minor things.
I live in a large city in the South of England and use cabs a lot. The talk of taxi drivers, at least in the UK, is a pretty good gauge of the feelings of Joe Public and the general attitude has nothing at all to do with nostalgia or the wish to return to a ‘simpler’ time. I’d sum the feeling up ‘We don’t want your European passport, stick it up your arse.’ Europe is very unpopular with the English working class.
The attitudes of UK taxi drivers are not a good barometer of anything except their own attitudes. Most are highly opionated characters with quite reactionary views about EVERYTHING and tend to entertain their customers with their views whether they like it or not. Many of the drivers of traditional black London taxis, used to work in other trades that were subject to competition from the EU workers and have a resentful attitude towards Europe. What ever you do, don’t get them started on the subject of Uber.
Having said that, it is true that working class attitudes towards the EU are negative, this is unsurprising given the decades of negative reporting on the EU that has persisited in the popular press.
Musn’t have been from Italy: their ID cards are fucking HUGE. Very inconvenient, because unlike the cc-sized ones they don’t fit in most wallets. Did your continental friends not know the difference between an ID card and a passport? Part of the reason to make ID cards acceptable as flying ID is precisely their greater convenience due to smaller size.
The security in the little or not-so-little ID cards or in driver’s licenses is as high as on passports. Nothing cheap about them except the cost to the user. And the reason for Schengen is that stopping at every border is a pain in the arse. BTW, you guys do not have water around every edge: zero in geography.
