Jeux Sans Frontieres 3
Back in July the blog commented on Gordon Brown's proposal for a new border police force, which appeared to be destined to operate everywhere except on the only land border the UK has. Now the Irish Times has reported on the demise of the Common Travel Area as Britain adopts an e-borders system. There will be no checks on the land border, but the days of no ID travel are numbered. To be honest most of the times I fly across I have to produce some kind of ID, although if I sail across with the car my passport-less offspring are not thrown overboard.
However Jim Allister is concerned that the e-borders plan could mean citizens of Northern Ireland being asked to show passports when they fly or sail to Great Britain. The Home Office says there are no "immediate plans" for passport checks on passengers travelling from the Irish Republic to Britain. They are however exploring the potential for additional checks on passengers travelling within the Common Travel area, whatever that means.
Some information from Dublin suggests that when the British e-Borders system is fully developed it will necessitate all air and sea passengers being in possession of a valid passport to facilitate a journey within the CTA. I'm not sure whether that applies just to passengers from Dublin and Belfast, or if it implies that in the future a passenger flying from, say, London to Newcastle will need either a passport or one of the new ID cards. I shall keep you posted if I find out anymore.
UPDATE: A Home Office statement says "There are no plans to require domestic passengers to produce passports on all domestic air and sea journeys". So does that mean NI passengers won't have to produce one to sail to Stranraer?
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Why, oh why, doesn't the UK and Ireland just join Schengen? All this "e-border" stuff is old hat for the 28 members of Schengen. Why do we always have to re-invent the wheel? (Anything to do with big donations to New Labour from big IT companies, perhaps?)
This is a serious issue. It would be outrageous if the British government were allowed to introduce what would in effect be an internal UK border, if traffic across the Irish Sea became subject to passport type controls - the first time such internal controls would have existed on travel within one state in Europe since reunification of East and West Germany. What is next - passport checks on using the Isle of Wight ferry or crossing the Severn Bridge?
Even more appalling and a retrograde step, after all the efforts of the peace process, would be any possible introduction of border controls between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Driving across it at present (for those in Britain unfamiliar with it) currently feels just like driving across any other land border in Western Europe since the introduction of the Schengen Agreement - just as it should be. The government may say now that they have no intention of doing this, but can they be trusted? I am not sure that they can.
Sadly the British government has no concept of passport free travel, with its obsession with ever tighter and more degrading checks on international travel.
Even with the CTA in place, on the last to-one occasion that I crossed back from Dublin to Wales by ferry I - and all fellow passengers in cars - were subjected to endless ID checks with the result that it took an hour to get from the ferry onto the road. On travel to Dublin, the Irish authorities honoured the agreement and carried out no checks.
I do hope that the people of Ireland North and South (and indeed the British side) oppose this plan to split the UK (or the UK from the Republic) vigorously.
Yes, there are security issues, but at some point they must also be balanced with the issue of freedom to travel without state interference.