119,000 SIGN OUR PASSPORT PETITION
Mail readers pile the pressure on MPs to stop British passports being made abroad
MORE than 119,000 readers have already signed the Daily Mail’s petition demanding Britain’s post-Brexit blue passports be made in the UK.
The huge response piled pressure on ministers and led to calls last night for a Parliamentary debate.
The tally surged to six figures within 36 hours of the petition’s launch on Saturday, and last night was still climbing.
It calls on ministers to think again after awarding the passport production contract to Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto, which will take over from British producer De La Rue – which has a printing plant in Gateshead – in 2019.
Last night there was praise for this newspaper’s army of patriotic readers who have already signed up, and calls for a debate before the Government finalises the deal.
Labour MP and former minister John Spellar said the strength of support for the Mail’s petition showed why the Speaker should hold a Commons debate. ‘It is a hugely important issue,’ he said. ‘Ministers should come and explain why they are not backing British industry, and if they are claiming vast savings they should lay some figures before Parliament to justify that and not hide behind so-called commercial confidentiality.’
Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage said: ‘This petition shows there’s obviously massive support for this. It is the ultimate symbol of nationality. A Prime Minister who was elected on a slogan of Brexit means Brexit needs to show she means it.
‘It’s a completely outrageous idea that they should be printed in France. No other country in Europe would do this.
‘A full debate needs to happen in Parliament before we issue the contract to a foreign company.’
Gateshead Labour MP Ian Mearns said the decision was ‘inexplicable’, adding: ‘Ministers need to come and explain if they have done an assessment ... of what the loss to the exchequer would be by this contract being awarded [abroad].’
Ministers face a week of grilling over the decision not to award the contract to a British firm after saying it was a result of EU competition rules. Labour MPs will today ask the Speaker to grant an urgent question so Home Secretary Amber Rudd or one of her junior ministers is summoned to the Commons to explain the choice of Gemalto.
Tomorrow, Theresa May is expected to be quizzed on the matter when she appears before the Commons liaison committee.
Then on Wednesday, Miss Rudd will be pressed on the issue at a session of the home affairs select committee
‘Should back British workers’
before Mrs May faces MPs at PMQs. Parliament’s e-petition page states that once an issue has attracted 10,000 signatures, there will be a guaranteed Government response. Upon 100,000 signatures, the issue must be considered for a full debate in Parliament. Such petitions are almost always debated.
Our petition was launched on MailOnline after a deluge of calls and letters from readers.
Among the concerns they raised were that hundreds of jobs could be lost at the Gateshead site and that handing data on British citizens to a foreign firm could increase the risk of hackers successfully targeting sensitive information.
Others said producing the blue documents abroad made a mockery of Mrs May’s claim their reintroduction would be an ‘expression of our independence and sovereignty’ post-Brexit.
On Saturday, Unite union chief Len McCluskey branded ministers’ decision the ‘ passport betrayal’, saying it was ‘ not about red versus blue’ but ‘saving decent British jobs’. He added ministers should ‘ back Britain’s workers and make our passports truly something to be proud of’. Tory MPs have made similar calls.
Several countries sidestep EU competition rules and insist on their passports being made at home for national security reasons. Germany, Spain, Italy and France all award contracts to domestic makers.
EU rules on public procurement were designed to obtain better value for taxpayers by ensuring public contracts above certain thresholds are awarded through ‘transparent, non- discriminatory and competitive tender procedures’. But countries can rely on a ‘national security’ exemption to justify directly awarding contracts.
GEORGE Osborne has been dragged into the row after it emerged a firm he works for owns part of Gemalto. He is paid £650,000 a year as an adviser to fund managing firm BlackRock, which has a 2.67 per cent stake in the Franco-Dutch firm.
Mr Osborne insisted attacking the outsourcing decision was ‘hypocrisy’. He tweeted a link to an Evening Standard article that said: ‘Surely this is exactly the kind of global free trade the Brexiteers told us they were all in favour of?’ There is no suggestion Mr Osborne or BlackRock were involved in Gemalto’s bid.
COUNTING their money, a group of caricatured Jewish men sit around a Monopoly board balanced on the backs of the oppressed poor. It is an image, once daubed on a wall in London’s east end, which wouldn’t look out of place in a 1930s nazi propaganda leaflet.
With considerable reluctance, the Mail today reprints this grotesque piece of anti-Semitic propaganda so readers can judge for themselves what it says about the man who postures as this country’s next Prime Minister.
For in 2012 – just three years before he became Labour leader – Mr Corbyn questioned in an online post why the mural should be painted over.
Facing criticism from Jewish Labour MPs last week, he issued a pathetic statement expressing ‘regret’ that he hadn’t looked closely enough at the image. The Mail gives little credence to his explanation, when even the most casual glance would have revealed its repugnant anti-Semitic tropes. Would he have been so blasé about racist images of black people or Muslims?
no, in truth this is yet more evidence of Mr Corbyn’s shameful tolerance of vile racist hatred when it comes to Britain’s Jewish community.
Indeed, for years he has given succour to known anti-Semites. As a backbench MP, he and members of his inner circle inhabited dark corners of the internet where virulent abuse of Jews was rife. As Labour leader, he has allowed a virulent strain of intolerance to infect the party, failed to act when Jewish Labour groups were demonised at conference, and presided over a disgraceful whitewash of anti-Semitism.
Last night, while failing to take any personal responsibility, Mr Corbyn finally apologised for ‘pockets of anti-Semitism’ within Labour. But given his appalling behaviour to date – and his refusal to say sorry for his shameful comment about the mural – why should anyone believe him? Just two days after the Mail launched its petition to keep in Britain the manufacture of the new blue passport, and already more than 119,000 people (and counting) have signed up. As ministers face being hauled to the Commons to answer for this thoughtless and unpatriotic decision, do they now realise what a terrible mistake they’ve made?