FOR some Tory MPs, the best thing about Brexit would be seeing the back of
the burgundy passports foisted upon Britons by the bureaucrats in Brussels.
Earlier in the year Tory MP Andrew Bridgen salivated at the thought of getting rid of the ID document – the distinctive reddish hue of which meant that, from a distance, he could be mistaken for a Spaniard or an Italian. He told a tabloid newspaper: “As we get our sovereignty back, I’m looking forward to getting my British passport back too.”
His colleague Andrew Rosindell, the MP in charge of the Flags and Heraldry Committee, went further: “It’s a matter of identity. Having the pink European passports
has been a source of humiliation. It merged us into one European identity, which isn’t what we are.
“The old dark blue design was a distinct, clear and bold statement of what it means to be British, which is just what our citizens need as they travel abroad after Brexit.”
It turns out that “distinct, clear and bold statement on what it means to be British” might actually be made in France.
Three firms are competing for a £490 million contract to produce a new post-Brexit British passport: one French, one German and British private security company De La Rue. The Home Office is expected to announce the winner before Christmas.
The prospect of a European Union company winning the contract has left some Eurosceptic MPs seeing red. They were counting the days before ditching the burgundy-covered document, introduced in 1988 to match the other EU countries.
Bridgen was furious. “While I want to see the government achieving the best value for money, it would be ludicrous if our passports were made in Europe,” he told a newspaper.
Rosindell too was apoplectic: “I want to see the new British passport manufactured in Britain in a British factory employing British people, because if it is not it rather defeats the objective of upholding British identity.”
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