‘Here is your lovely blue passport. That will be four shillings and thruppence’
Home Office confirms that the classic ‘Old Blue’ will return after Britain leaves the EU in 2019… but it is not what many who campaigned for it were expecting
THE return of Britain’s old blue passports was a key symbol of leaving the EU for many Brexit supporters.
However, while it has been confirmed that passports will revert to the colour used before Britain switched to the Europe-wide burgundy tone, it has emerged that it might not be quite the shade Brexiteers remember.
Mock-ups of the new passports to be introduced in 2019 show it to be blue, but it has been pointed out that the pre-1988 passports appeared to be very dark blue, if not black.
The Home Office has confirmed the new passports “may not immediately look like the old passport people remember because these became darker as they got older.”
If the passport covers are made with the current, modern material, they are unlikely to change colour over time.
Announcing the change back to a blue passport, Theresa May wrote on Twitter yesterday: “The UK passport is an expression of our independence and sovereignty – symbolising our citizenship of a proud, great nation.
“That’s why we have announced that the iconic blue passport will return after we leave the European Union in 2019.”
Brandon Lewis, the immigration minister, said: “Leaving the EU gives us a unique opportunity to restore our national identity and forge a new path for ourselves in the world.”
The Home Office said the blue cover would mark a return to the colour adopted in 1921 and used until the UK joined the EU, when the burgundy format was agreed and adopted.
Sources pointed out that the size would not revert to the pre-1988 version, with the smaller dimensions of the EU passport being retained so that they can be inserted into standard-size passport control machines at airports around the world. Neither would the new passport include the cut-out sections on the front in which the holder’s name was written in ink by a civil servant at the issuing office.
However, ministers emphasise they would include a raft of new security measures, such as new, “super-strength plastic polycarbonate material”, which is said to be more difficult to alter than the current paper-based picture pages.
Reverting to a blue passport was one of the demands of many of those who urged voters to leave the European Union in last year’s referendum.
Julian Knight, a Conservative MP who campaigned to revert to the old passport, said: “Before Brussels got their hands on it, the British passport was once one of the most elegant and recognisable in the world – the League of Nations even described the design as ‘perfection itself ’!
“Our vote to Leave gives us a great opportunity to revive this classic British icon: a return to ‘Old Blue’ would be a welcome symbol of the fact that we are a proud, independent country.”
But the announcement that the burgundy passport is to be ditched in favour of the old blue was greeted with scepticism by many.
Michael Crick, the veteran TV political correspondent, said: “The new passport is nothing like the old blue, which was almost black. Having fished out my old passport, it’s wrong to describe that as blue. It looks black to me, and that’s how any witness would describe it in court.”
Paul Brannen, the Labour MEP for North East of England said: “If you view the Fifties and Sixties through rose-tinted spectacles, then the passport was blue. Otherwise it was black.”
David Banks, a media law writer and consultant. said: “They were never that colour blue, they were almost black. So we’re ‘getting back’ a garish blue passport none of us had in the first place.”