Crossing Borders

[natalie_1982]

I might be thick but this has always puzzled me..... You need a passport to get into the UK - the UK is an island so the majority of arrivals to our country would be via boat or plane (or Chunnel I guess). Either way all of these options are manned by Customs and Excise. What about if you lived somewhere like Germany and wanted to pop across to Belgium? What / who would stop you? They can't man the entire length of the border? I'm confused. Thanks x

[vehelpfulguy]

There was a time when they did man most border crossing points (major roads, railways etc) but once it became the EU, and border controls were dropped, they all went.

I guess there was always ways of getting across the border if you went via small lanes or even walked over fields, as you say, they cannot man every stretch of the border.

Of course it has always been possible to get into England with no passport via a boat into a small port, or even get dropped off by boat on a lonely beach.

If you think about it you do not need a passport to go from England to Scotland or Wales.

The idea is we make Europe the same, no passport to get from Spain to France or France to Belgium and so on.

The problem with this is that it opens up the door to illegal immigrants or criminals, once they get into Europe they can move fairly easily from country to country.

As we all know this has been a huge problem in the last 10 years and we are now stuck with hundreds of thousands of people inside Europe who have no right to be here, and we dont want, but cant get rid of.

[KARL]

Correct, the UK did not and, officially at least, does not want open borders within the EU (others are happy with them). As for people coming from elsewhere to stay for good uninvited, the UK has probably many millions of its nationals living permanently abroad, including quite a number who have never been to the UK nor have their parents (this latter case is now sort of being phased out through death of these passport holders). If all of them came to the UK at once the country would be overwhelmed. The discussion at present is (as you know doubt know) whether to clamp down harder on the illegals or not. Almost every country in the world has illegal immigrants, many of them (UK included) have lived in that situation for generations if not centuries - quite a few since before there was any official citizenship. There is nothing new under the sun. The UK does not have the highest ratio of illegals to its rightful citizens, not by a long shot.