WRITTEN ON July 31st, 2008 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Foundation of Trust, Political engagement, What do we want?
It seems the Home Office wants to abolish the Comon Travel Area in the British isles, and is doing a sort of pickled figleaf of a consultation in preparation. It’s a sort of
1. Do you agree that new powers to enable border controls on all air and sea routes from the republic of ireland to the UK for non-cta nationals should be introduced?
Yes/Don’t know/No
If you say “No” you are given a lot of space to explain yourself, because that’s what they plan to do. And ditto with the question
Do you agree that identity controls should be introduced on all air and sea routes from the republic of ireland to the UK for CTA nationals?
It feels to me that there has to be a damn good reason for introducing all the extra hassle and expense. Where can we now travel without being hassled by control phreaks?
They clearly desperately want to get rid of the CTA. But why? Where is the evidence that there’s any need for it? Is it IRA revisited? Scary route for import of illegal substances and weaponry? Are we being infiltrated by paedophile Irish priests?
Thre’s lots of tough stuff about new checks and ID cards and biggest shakeups for God knows how many years. But nothing about why there is any need for vile new controls.
Liam Byrne used to be such a nice chap when he was unemployed/struggling with a dotcom startup. He was my mate. What is it about working in the Home Office that makes his output now seem so toxic? I just don’t feel I’m honestly presented with the difficult problems we all need to solve together. I feel I’m being fobbed off with fibbing, conniving, disrespectful nonsense. Isn’t that awful? Well, it is far from ideal.
Wibbi: the Home Office treated us with respect and consideration, and consulted with us as if we were intelligent human beings?
Wibbi: we could go online and click a button somewhere to turn off all their pensions if we were dissatisfied with how we were being treated?
6 Responses to “Annoying consultation vibration: common travel area”
My GCWeekly email has another take:
Some departments have recently shelved what could be called ‘surveillance society’ projects, including road pricing and personal carbon accounts, having realised that large stores of personal data can become a liability.
Not the Home Office. It retains its plan for a single database covering all emails and telephone calls, and last week it published a consultation on extending the e-Borders system to journeys between the UK, Ireland, the Channel Islands and Isle of Man – for several decades a passport-free Common Travel Area.
Given that such measures were not imposed during the Troubles, it seems ludicrous to impose them now on security grounds. But that ignores the logic of the Home Office’s identity card scheme: without ending ID-free travel, Irish citizens would eventually be the only people in Britain legally lacking a card or passport, as Ireland has no plans for such a scheme.
Even under these plans, the Irish may get this special status within Northern Ireland, as the Home Office has ruled out fixed controls on the land border.
It seems
William
Doesn’t your second wibbi make you sound a bit too much like them? Can’t at least one side of debate be reasonable and civilised?
Paul
Argh. It’s true. (tho it would be fun, and it would focus their minds) No! You’re right Paul.
Wibbi the Home Office could see how alienating the combination of all its “tough” talk and its inept approach to conultation can be? And that it coupled that with the insight that its easier to keep safe a society that keeps itself safe, to police with consent, and to solve social problems with the active participation of those involved?
Is that a more polite and constructive way of saying “I really wish they would stop pissing us off”? I hope it is…
Thank you for pulling me up to scratch. I may need it one or two more times yet…
It is perfectly straightforward why they want to abolish the CTA. It is in the way of not one but two cheirsged Home Office schemes: e-Borders and the National Identity Scheme.
As it is Irish people have an absolute right to live and work anywhere in the UK and can’t be forced to register (hence the feeble description in the Strategic Action Plan for the National Identity Scheme of how Irish residents in the UK will have a *voluntary* entitlement card to access public services). And British people can do awful things like leaving the country without being monitored, if they go to Ireland.
Simple, it’s fear of competition: In view of our shared history, many of us loyal residents of the UK are entitled to apply for Irish passports.
At present, the Irish passport is better value than the ridiculous “world beating” UK variety – especially as renewal would be free for life!
Thanks to the UK government’s disastrous foreign policy and its ghastly recent “adventures,” carrying an Irish passport is considerably safer than carrying one issued by the widely hated UK.
So, the UK government has obviously decided to impose extra hurdles in a vain effort to retain its “customers.”