Brexit: Blue British Passports to Be Ready by March

Passport
Victoria Friedman

The return of the British blue passport could happen as early as March, which will “symbolise our national identity” has been regained.

When the United Kingdom was a member of the European Union, British passport covers had to be burgundy and bear the inscription “European Union” above “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”.

The first burgundy passports were issued in 1988, then bearing the brand “European Community”. The iconic British passports had been blue since the 1920s.

Considered a hallmark of regaining British autonomy post-Brexit, deputy to the Secretary of State for the Home Department Brandon Lewis said the return of the blue passports will “symbolise our national identity”, according to comments reported in The New European.

A Home Office spokesman said that whilst stock of the burgundy covers is still being used up, “we expect all new passports to be blue by the middle of the year”.

“As well as using up the existing stock of burgundy passports, the printing presses all need to be tweaked to make blue covers, which needs to be done in stages, otherwise the printing process would grind to a halt,” he added.

The New European, a fanatically pro-EU weekly newspaper, launched its own “Bollocks to Brexit” burgundy passport cases last month, so that their readers can “proudly show Remainers that they didn’t back Brexit”.

Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage had often waved his burgundy European Union-branded passport as a testament to the subjugation of the UK by the bloc. When the Home Office confirmed in 2017 that passports, as well as abandoning “European Union”, would return to ‘Old Blue’, Mr Farage hailed the symbolic victory and said he “couldn’t be happier”.

Mr Farage had said: “You can’t be a nation unless you have those symbols, so in the referendum, every single interview I did — literally every single one — I held up this [European Union] passport.”

“I was told that I was being a narrow-minded nationalist, and what was the matter, there was a new European identity that we should all embrace — well, to hell with that!” he added.

Continuing, he said: “To be honest with you, the words matter more than the colour. Taking off the words ‘European Union’ matters more than the colour.

“But the colour, going back to that navy blue, what it says is that normal service is being resumed — we’re becoming a proper country again.”

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