75A
Established Member
That'll never happen here, that's for sure.
Nor 'hard borders'
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Passport Rules
- Thread starter dangie
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What makes you say that?
It (fingerprinting) would sit perfectly with the current Tories' outlook on borders and immigration. While I don't know, I would imagine most recent Home Secretaries would relish the thought. Would be right up Braverman's street, for example, I'd have thought.
Regarding fingerprinting versus passports:
Showing a passport is more akin to showing a ticket to access the railway. Very different in feel.
Would a rule whereby season ticket holders have their fingerprints taken when they buy the ticket, and subsequently every time they access the railway, be acceptable? It would have a semi-sensible rationale (would prevent other people using the ticket) but wouldn't exactly be friendly.
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AlterEgo
Veteran Member
Showing a railway ticket to prove your contractual right to use a service isn’t at all like showing a passport. When you present yourself at the border to a foreign country you ask to enter as a guest. You have no absolute right to enter most of them at all, or to stay.
That you feel showing your British passport to a foreign border official conveys the same level of entitlement as someone who has paid money to use a service is quite odd.
It’s true that some border formalities feel more or less friendly than others, but in my experience it’s just one of those things. It’s two minutes out of your day.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
It doesn't do anything of the sort. Every country in the World has rules about what documentation it requires foreigners to have in order to enter the country. Neither the UK nor the EU is any different in that regard. The lesson to be learned from this is (a) the importance of checking that your passport/documentation/etc. meets the rules of the country you are going to visit BEFORE you set off, and (b) that maybe the airlines and travel companies should be a bit more upfront about reminding passengers in advance what documentation they will need.
I will hold my hands up and admit getting caught out on that many years ago. I didn't think at the time peanut butter would be considered a liquid (especially the variety that is very thick) and I had it confiscated.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
I suspect that part of what might be going on there in at least some cases is that some people are at least vaguely aware of the rules, but decide to chance it because they know the worst that can happen to them is that their bottle of water or whatever gets confiscated and thrown away. Plus, when it comes to lotions and pastes etc. they might be unsure whether something does or doesn't count as a liquid. So I wouldn't assume that everyone who turns up at the gate with some container of liquid amongst their luggage is completely unaware of the rules.
Well, if it hadn't been for Brexit, it wouldn't be a consideration for the UK - so it is correct to partly blame Brexit for this. On its own, it's little - but combined with all the other problems and inconveniences Brexit brings, it all adds up.
It is also non-obvious, though, so I agree that it should be stated in big red letters whenever you book a travel ticket.
Common sense would suggest that a printed expiry date is the correct expiry date (in the same way that the expiry date on any other document should be assumed to be the correct expiry date) so any variation to common sense needs to be made absolutely, glaringly, screamingly obvious - otherwise you are going to get people losing a lot of money on forcibly cancelled holidays.
It's certainly a lot less obvious than the liquids rule.
I think this boils down to the old chestnut of "is freedom of movement a good thing, or is it not?"
From my perspective I would argue that, in an ideal world, there should be an automatic right of entry to the majority of countries for a short-term period subject to certain conditions, i.e. you're not a criminal, wanted by the police, previously been banned from entering for one reason or another, or on national security grounds (e.g. you're a citizen of a "hostile" country). But I am a strong believer in FoM (and I personally would have extended it to selected countries outside the EU, not taken it away) and a strong critic of hard borders between "friendly" countries, while others will disagree. However, neither point of view is fundamentally right or wrong.
I realise the train (or more correctly, railway property) comparison is not such a good one as you pay money to use the trains, whereas you don't (well, directly at least) pay to enter another country. However, there are similarities. You have no "absolute right" to enter railway property or board a train; this is subject to various conditions. I was drawing attention to the fact that both involve entry to a "restricted" area, entry is subject to various conditions, and you can receive an entry ban (for the railway this might be due to previous misbehaviour).
Perhaps entry to a pub is a better example. Some pubs require you to show ID. Fine. But if a pub started taking fingerprints (for security reasons, to prevent barred individuals entering) I think most people would go elsewhere!
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43096
On Moderation
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I don't think that's really getting caught out! I can well understand why anyone would think peanut butter wouldn't be considered a liquid.
Sorry, it's 17 years that we've had these rules - are there seriously that many people who still don't know, or are trying it on?
I stand by my original comment that the airport process is an idiot test, and the passport issue people/the BBC are flapping about currently is a "tax" on such people.
I'd agree there on balance though I'd probably consider it a liquid. But easy to see why people wouldn't.
Could be a bit of both, I guess. Conceivable that those who haven't flown since before 9/11 are unaware, I guess - though the signs in airports do make it very obvious.
Except you would not have to be an "idiot" to assume that the printed expiry date in a passport is the actual expiry date.
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Indeed. Why is there Schengen at all - why not just have open borders to everyone? Ah - because the people of some nations are not to be trusted, in one way or another. So the Schengen Zone is treating all the member states as states of a single entity [in construction] - a United States of Europe. In other groups of states it is similar - there is no passport checking between Louisiana and Mississippi either. However, the UK is outside of that, so those people are not to be trusted, and likewise we won't trust them. Fingerprints et al is just a symptom of the technology now available to produce fraudulent documents.
northwichcat
Established Member
In fairness passports last 10 years. If you had 5 years left on your passport when it was a news item, would you really pay enough attention to it, to remember it in 4 years time (especially if the rules may change in those 4 years)?
What Brexiteers don't want to admit is the Schengen zone is a flexible arrangement. Member states can check passports if they want, or not if they don't. If they are hosting a football tournament and think known hooligans may try to get in through the back door they can check passports of everyone entering the country, like Austria did when it hosted the Euros.
And if there's a severe risk to the UK's national security then we'd be relying on Irish border control to help stop a terrorist travelling from the US to the UK via Shannon or Dublin airports. We've always been less likely to check ID of arrivals from Ireland, then the Irish are likely to check IDs of arrivals from the UK.
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And that attitude I find deeply sad. Liberal democratic nations should really trust each other as they share similar values. Especially as there are many genuine rogue actors in the world today - there's little need to add to our problems by inventing phoney cold wars between countries basically on the same side. And I don't just mean EU either, I'd include a range of other countries too, such as Canada or the US to name just two of many (assuming Trump doesn't get in of course).
But we've had this discussion before and we agreed to disagree, so I'll just leave it there
I don't think the fingerprinting thing is initiated from the UK. I believe it is to be an EU requirement for all (presumably untrustworthy by default) non-EU people, with us no doubt reciprocating at some point. You may think the UK is on the same side, but it seems that they do not.And that attitude I find deeply sad. Liberal democratic nations should really trust each other as they share similar values. Especially as there are many genuine rogue actors in the world today - there's little need to add to our problems by inventing phoney cold wars between countries basically on the same side. And I don't just mean EU either, I'd include a range of other countries too, such as Canada or the US to name just two of many (assuming Trump doesn't get in of course).
But we've had this discussion before and we agreed to disagree, so I'll just leave it there
Enthusiast
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They need not admit it because it isn't flexible and they can't check passports (not for border control, anyway).
The EU Commission can authorise the suspension of open internal borders if there is a threat to the integrity of the bloc from external countries. But individual nations can only operate "police checks":
REGULATION (EU) 2016/399 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL
of 9 March 2016
on a Union Code on the rules governing the movement of persons across borders (Schengen Borders Code)
Article 23
Checks within the territory
The absence of border control at internal borders shall not affect:
(a) the exercise of police powers by the competent authorities of the Member States under national law, insofar as the exercise of those powers does not have an effect equivalent to border checks; that shall also apply in border areas. Within the meaning of the first sentence, the exercise of police powers may not, in particular, be considered equivalent to the exercise of border checks when the police measures:
(i)do not have border control as an objective;
(ii)are based on general police information and experience regarding possible threats to public security and aim, in particular, to combat cross-border crime;
(iii)are devised and executed in a manner clearly distinct from systematic checks on persons at the external borders;
(iv)are carried out on the basis of spot-checks;
[my emphasis]
I don't know what the Austrians did when they hosted their football tournament but whatever reason they chose to examine people's passports for, it should not have been for systematic border control purposes. There is nothing flexible or optional about the internal border controls which have been abolished by Schengen. It is lauded by the EU as one of its most notable achievements and it will not see it suspended merely o the whim of an irritant member's government.
I think what aggrieves people is that you pay for a ten year passport and then find it’s actually got nearer to nine years’ usage on it. It’s also one of those areas where a government with its head screwed on would have anticipated how it would play with Middle England and negotiated a way around it.
It would almost certainly have been cheaper and probably easier to have been under the EU umbrella for travel purposes, but again the practical solution is sacrificed to the lunatic fringe.
It does seem to be symptomatic of a growing mistrust within the Western world, which was perhaps instigated by the US post 9/11 with tougher immigration controls, and seems to be spreading throughout the West.
It's enough to make me a bit of a Schengen-sceptic, to be honest, as I don't see why there is any fundamental reason why UK citizens are "different" to citizens of the very diverse range of countries that make up the EU and/or Schengen. I'd prefer a world in which there were "soft" borders (i.e. passport controls and a few checks to prevent movement of criminals, etc, but no FoM restriction otherwise) between continental countries - but also a similar "soft" border between the UK and the rest of Europe. Like it was in the 80s. Worked then, why can't it work now?
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northwichcat
Established Member
The UK is one of very few European countries where the person checking your passport at the border control is not a form of police officier.
When you board a Eurostar train or ferry to France, the French police will do an official border control check. If you travel from Austria to Germany by train the German police can board and ask to see everyone's passport or ID card, but probably won't and if they do they won't scan or stamp any passports.
Prior to the scanning requirement being added at EU border control, showing the border control person your passport open at the photo page was often enough to get waved through.
Stopping criminals or terrorists would be seen as something members should work together to stop, nothing to do with "an irritant member's government"! Why would Italy, Germany, Slovenia or Hungary want criminals hoping to head for Austria turning up at their border control?
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I assume by 80s you’re meaning before 1985 and the start of Schengen? But it wasn’t a soft border then. The decaying remnants of the old border posts are evidence that it used to be a harder border. As we never joined then we kept the same border controls.
I don’t think 9/11 was the trigger, it’s been coming for a while. Net immigration for the EU was minor or sometimes even negative up to the 80s/90s. It’s unsurprising that with the demographic shifts that countries would want more control to allow their infrastructure to keep up. The UK has effectively added the population of London in the last 40 years.
I don't think Schengen existed in 1985 in practice. We travelled from France to Germany in both 1986 and 1987 and in both cases there was passport control at the border. But it was of the "show your passport for a quick check" type rather than anything harder than that. (Rather like UK to/from EU pre-2020, which also wasn't an excessively "hard" border).
(I was on a family passport though, so didn't show it personally and thus wasn't intimately familiar with the procedure).
That's what I mean by "soft" borders - I didn't mean "no border at all".
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DynamicSpirit
Established Member
1. Foreign travel was much more expensive in the 1980s. Something that, to a large extent, only the better off could afford to do. Also, there was no Internet, limited tv channels etc., and it was therefore much harder to find out the kind of information about foreign countries that would tempt people to settle abroad and make it easy for them to do so. That posed a strong natural barrier to migration, therefore making 'soft' borders less of an issue.
2. In any case, it's not really true that borders between all continental countries were 'soft' in the 1980s - as I'm sure anyone wanting to travel between Western Europe and Communist Eastern Europe would very quickly have discovered! Some borders, between the wealthy capitalist countries, were 'soft' but that was only a fairly small number of countries compared to the size of the current EU.
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Are you not thinking of the 60s and prior?
Enthusiast
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The fact that police officers are making the checks does not mean they are not made for border control purposes. The Agreement makes a distinction based on what the checks are for, not who is making them.
It would be interesting to know for what reason they are doing that. The Schengen Treaty does not permit such action for "border control" purposes. Article 23 which I quoted above makes that clear. The Articles on internal border control begins "Internal borders may be crossed at any point without a border check on persons, irrespective of their nationality, being carried out.
The Agreement allows checks to be made for police purposes. What it does not allow is checks to be made which are, to all intents and purposes, border control checks. The "police" checks must be "..based on general police information and experience regarding possible threats to public security and aim, in particular, to combat cross-border crime.." They must also be "...devised and executed in a manner clearly distinct from systematic checks on persons at the external borders."
The passage I was responding to was this:
I may have misunderstood, but "checking passports" gave me the impression that member states were entitled to impose border control as and when they see fit (hence my use of "on a whim"). There is an Article (28) which permits the reintroduction of border controls but only in the most exceptional circumstances. These must present "...a serious threat to public policy or internal security in a Member State [which] requires immediate action to be taken...". Any action taken in these circumstances is strictly time bound (the duration depending on the nature and seriousness of the problem). I would suggest that a football match does not fit those criteria.
Apart from that, there is nothing remotely "flexible" about the Schengen Agreement. Members who have signed up to it have effectively abandoned their right to operate formal border controls, save in the most exceptional circumstances. They certainly cannot "check passports if they want, or not if they don't."
The deregulation of flights between EU countries was in 1992, EasyJet were founded in 1995. Getting a cheap flight to somewhere in Europe for a stag do feels very much something that started in the 90s/00s as it had become affordable to do so.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
No, I am thinking of the 80s. I can see where you're coming from because in the 60s foreign travel would have been much more the preserve of the wealthy, but it was becoming more affordable in the 80s. But even so, travel was still much more expensive and more of a luxury in the 1980s compared to today. And certainly, if you lived in one of the poorer European countries (so, exactly the kind of country you'd typically want to migrate from), it'd be pretty unlikely that you could afford trips to places like the UK or France at that time.
Ah ok. I was thinking from a UK perspective only.
It does now seem that to have a stag do you have to travel half way round the world lol!
dangie
Established Member
Just save money and go to the local Wetherspoons instead
That is what happens when a country gets attacked like that. When other countries which where previously assumed reasonably safe are seen to have had a large influx of similar people (who have been given citizenship) to those who have attacked your country there is almost inevitable that they will be suspicious of them too.
Because in the past 40 years or so, much has changed and it can't work now - Internet / Iraq war / Afghan war / fall of communism / improved, cheaper transport links / increased economic migration from third world etc etc. We are no longer living in the 80s and immigration policies have had to follow suit. If the Western countries share their wealth out to the rest of the world ...... Oh, we don't want to do that, so the current situation is a downside to be managed.
Because as virtually all other European countries, including some not in the EU, chose to deepen cooperation by implementing Schengen, the UK both inside and outside the EU chose to pull back from any such system.
Don't forget that Schengen and similar schemes are not just about the citizens of the participating countries - they are about all movements. Thus if we were part, then it wouldn't just be UK citizens that benefited, but anyone of any nationality who wished to travel between the UK and existing Schengen countries. The countries need common external borders, including common visa systems.
northwichcat
Established Member
Even in the mid 00s EasyJet still mainly operated out of Liverpool and Luton. If you wanted a budget airline flight out of Manchester you had a choice of Ryanair to Ireland or Ryanair to Ireland. Flying to somewhere like Paris could be £50 cheaper from Liverpool than Manchester. By the early 10s EasyJet were operating a number of routes out of Manchester. However, even then on certain routes out of Manchester the cheapest option was Monarch, and EasyJet offered a cheaper alternative out of Liverpool. By around 2013 the cost benefit of travelling to Liverpool over Manchester started to disappear.
Many security experts have said in the 90s the UK was still too focused on potential threats from Ireland and ignored potential threats from further afield as insignificant.
londonteacher
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My fingerprints were taken at the Port of Calais recently whilst travelling back with FlixBus.