A few days ago there was outrage. So much so, I bought a copy of the Daily Mail. Luckily, it was a week day edition and quit thin. This newspaper is still in the boot of my car. The reason being when I parked up at home, my Polish neighbour, Pavel was getting out of his van, and I was too ashamed to be seen with it.

Anyway, the outrage is not that from 2019 UK passports will be a navy blue again. This is what the Brexit people wanted. There’s a very deep emotional bond to the the dark blue, last seen in 1974. Europe told us that we must have a maroon coloured passport. But the thing is, they didn’t. We could have chosen any colour. Orange perhaps, or probably not orange. There’s too many difficulties already with that colour. The point is, that we could have chosen something else. Anyone saying anything else as either lying or mis-leading people.

So, the Brexit people have had their way on the passport colour. People will know they are British when they go abroad, as if this isn’t obvious to any foreign nationals when we travel abroad. Perhaps, they need to stick their passports to their foreheads too, just to make sure.

Why the outrage then? In short, the French! According to EU rules, the work to print the passports went out to tender and a French company won the contract. Passports will no longer be printed at Gateshead in the north of England. What isn’t clear is why blue passports cost more than maroon passports.

Two things are clear to me from this debacle:

1. Colour is still very much an issue in EnglandBritainUK
2. Brexiteers embarked on the EU exit without even the most basic of requirements
3. Three things! We are happy to trade with the rest of the world when it suits us. We’re not embarking on this to trade with and raise poor countries out of poverty. We are doing it to get cheap products. And if poor countries undercut us, we’ll probably lower our costs and the less well off parts of this county that swung the vote will find themselves even worse off.

Happy 29th March 2018 – One year to exit!