Sir, – Theresa May stated that the “iconic” blue colour of the UK passport cover will be immediately reinstated after exiting the EU. Guy Verhofstadt, the Brexit coordinator of the EU replied that “there is no EU legislation dictating passport colour. The UK could have had any passport colour it wanted and stay in the EU”.
This brief exchange demonstrates an extraordinary aspect of Brexit in that neither British citizens nor their prime minister were correct in their interpretation of the particular EU rules that have irritated them enough to vote for Brexit. It is a veritable feast of fake facts.
The nostalgia for the blue passport is extraordinary in that it wasn’t introduced until 1921, and it was only after its introduction that Britain lost its empire, much of its industry and its leading role in the world. Although a passport colour cannot be responsible for the demise of a country, nevertheless the nostalgia is hard to explain.
One fact is certain. Holders of British passports, red or blue, will be stuck in the long non-EU queue at Dublin Airport from March 2019. – Yours, etc,
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AOIFE LORD,
Tankardstown, Co Meath.
Sir, – The Tory plans for reviving blue passports post-Brexit, prompts an obvious question – why stop at travel documents? Surely now is the time to press ahead vigorously with the process of colourisation, most obviously by reintroducing blue body (or at least facial) painting for patriotic members of the Conservative Party. The practice was only stopped by much earlier European interference (during the Roman period). Indeed Roman sources sometimes referred to ancient Britons as the “Picti” – “those who are painted [blue]”.
The revival of woad horticulture in East Anglia would more than make up for Brexit’s decimation of City jobs. – Yours, etc,
Prof COLM CAMPBELL,
Bournemouth.