Regarding Wednesdays Brexit Outcome

[emmie]

what will happen to our current passports. Will we one day revert to our old passports, or is it simply too early to say.

[emmie]

would be nice if we could have our old blue passports back.

[Jackdaw33]

The colour of the passport is totally irrelevant. It is the regaining of our freedom which is important.

[KARL]

Like so much else surrounding Brexit, the answer to this question is unknown. However, unless and until an agreement to the contrary comes into force, on the date of the UK actually leaving the EU (in around two years' time), strictly, a UK passport holder will not have a right to stay in an EU country longer than any visa strictures allow (if a formal visa arrangement has been enacted) and certainly not to work there (again, unless an agreement to that effect has been enacted).

In practice, some or all EU countries may not actually bar any UK passport holder from entering without a visa agreement being in force but that person will (again strictly, all things being equal) then have no rules available to define his/her status. It seems unlikely (but not impossible) that some/all EU countries will regard the EU type UK passport invalid because it makes a by then invalid claim of EU status. Over time all the current UK passports will be replaced with a different one to a UK government design.

[emmie]

Karl
thank you, so no need to throw the thing in the bin just yet.

[ToraToraTora]

I hope so emmie, big blue ones, you don't show it to foreigners you bat them aside with it, Wonderful, come on lefties I'm ready!

[jourdain2]

Too early to say - I hope we will gradually phase in our old blue passports. Meantime, I have a bottle of bubbly in the fridge. :)

[Old_Geezer]

I don't see why anything should happen to them. They'll get replaced as they become due.

[fiction-factory]

I don't understand the desire to have blue passports back (maybe I'm colour blind- i remember them as black)- they are just a functional document that I use very rarely, but I suppose it's a symbol to wave at foreigners to remind them of our 'escape'

[DTCwordfan]

If we are going the old blue route, "Her Britannic Majesty's Secretary of State Requires in the Name of Her Majesty all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance, and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary"

and then "Or you get My Royal destroyer in front of your port ready to shell you...inc you rebellious Scots......"

[mikey4444]

This is typical of the kind of debate that we had, in the run up to the Ref. vote last year.

What bloody difference does it make what colour our passport is ?

We will all be able to go to Majorca and other such places in the future, in exactly the same way we do now.

[Old_Geezer]

I think there is a point about changing the appearance. It indicates that we are no longer part of the controlling group, but independent. And I can see nostalgia being a reason to opt for the "blue as the ace of spades" shade. But I don't see any need to waste money/time replacing them before they run out.

[emmie]

mikey it was rather tongue in cheek, but it does have an underlying point,
Karl has covered it very well i feel.

[mikey4444]

Emmie...I realise that it was tongue in cheek !

We are diving into the unknown, that's for sure.

[Baldric]

23:47 Tues
///We will all be able to go to Majorca and other such places in the future, in exactly the same way we do now///
11:31 Wed
///We are diving into the unknown, that's for sure///

A lack of certainty there I suspect

[emmie]

once out of the EU who knows what our travel restrictions will be, only time will tell.

[ummmm]

If people want a blue/black passport buy a passport cover.

I used my passport 3 times last year, other than that it's stayed in it's safe place, untouched and never looked at.

[ummmm]

And I've only ever had our current passport.

[Haggisdj]

@Mickey4444 "We will all be able to go to Majorca and other such places in the future, in exactly the same way we do now. "

I fly to Bologna once a year and I do know that with a European Union passport I walk straght through but the Russians, etc. who have non-EU passports have to queue for a couple of hours and have different checks so no, it is not exactly the same as we do now...

[New Judge]

"...once out of the EU who knows what our travel restrictions will be, only time will tell."

They will be exactly the same as they are now. That is, you will have to produce a valid passport on arrival in any EU country when travelling from the UK. After that, provided your first poart of call is a Schengen country there will be no checks at the border with any other Schengen country. The notion that UK citizens will require visas to travel to any of the remaining 27 EU countries is most unlikely to come to pass.

Although the colour of the cover may change, it is not likely that UK passports will revert to the slightly larger hardback versions. The size and shape of our current passports has been agreed internationally (beyond the EU) and is designed so that they may be used in automatic reading machines used in many countries worldwide. All that is really necessary is for the words "European Union" to be removed from the cover because that is the only reference to the EU that is contained in UK passports.

Incredible as it may seem to some people, travellers from the UK managed perfectly well to make trips to much of continental Europe before we joined the EU.

[emmie]

NJ
so i did, though i had blue passports then, much treasured.