The first formal border checks between Britain and the Irish Republic in more than 80 years have been proposed.
Full passport inspections could be part of the revisions, a Home Office consultation paper has said.
These would apply to those travelling by air and sea, but could also include more immigration checks between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland.
I'll bet my bottom dollar that last scenario never takes place, which means that UK citizens will be able to travel unfettered between Northern Ireland and the Republic, but not internally between two parts of their own nation.
But the governments said there were no plans for fixed checkpoints to be reintroduced along that land border.
There you go.
The scheme is expected to target attempted illegal immigration rather than domestic travellers.
The need to produce some proof of identity for travellers is aimed at foreign nationals rather than those living in the Common Travel Area (CTA), established in 1925.
As well as the UK and the Irish Republic, this area includes the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, where the enhanced checks would also be introduced.
Why is there now suddenly a need for this?
If immigration procedures are as watertight as they should be in both the Uk and the ROI, then there is no need to inconvenience domestic travelers in this proposed manner.
3 comments:
Its a pity really. Surely as you say, if the controls on entering the countries from outside these two jurisdictions were strong enough, then where would the problem be.
The ROI government always does a passport check on a return flight from the UK, so they havent been playing ball for a while now.
The ROI government always does a passport check on a return flight from the UK, so they havent been playing ball for a while now.
That surprises me. It's all very ironic, once I do actually manage to get to Calais or Ostend, I can travel unimpeded and unchecked eastwards right to the Ukranian border, yet it looks now like I'm going to have to produce a passport if I want to hop over to Manchester or London for the day.
I thought it all a bit strange. When I first heard about it I thought the ROI were considering joining Schengen (a reasonable explanation of why they would change present arrangements).
Concerning using passports to travel within the UK, you increasingly need these anyway to travel on domestic flights or at least have photo id.
I know there has a been a system of "police control" manned by Special Branch goons for years between NI and the rest of the UK. Most notably the one at Stranraer for Larne ferries. I believe they picked up a few hundred illegal immigrants there.
Many were people with visas/asylum for ROI who went over the border and then took the ferry. One notorious case was an African asylum seeker who having been told by friends in ROI she could travel to the UK passport free. So she left Dublin, made her way to Larne with the intention of going to a funeral of friend from back home taking place in Glasgow. She was picked up at Stranraer and put into the immigration detention centre at Dungavel where she stayed for a few months before being bailed and allowed to live with an MSP.
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