Fitch

The BA RPOs are of course a fictional whimsy of my warped mind - if you can see them too, then we're really in trouble

000

I would suggest that the rise of the revenue managers within BA, and the fall of the customer loyalty managers, particularly over the past few months, would be the single largest factor contributing this image to our minds.

Andriyko

Not entirely correct as Ireland now allows citizens of some countries to enter on a UK visa.

FrancisA

Of course the easiest arrangement for most people would have been for the UK and Ireland to join Schengen.

The fact that the UK wouldn't (for no more sensible reason than a xenophobic distrust of foreigners to operate immigration controls effectively) meant that Ireland couldn't join either. The reason being that if Ireland were in Schengen, it would need to implement full border controls with the UK (which would be unclean in immigration terms), including a formal frontier with Northern Ireland. Such a frontier dividing Ireland is unacceptable to most politicians in the Republic.

So here we are with another consequence of a UK immigration policy driven by the irrational fears of a largely ignorant public. Just think how much time and money the UK wastes on immigration checks with Schengen countries, which serve no real purpose.

irishguy28

True - but what lorcancoyle says is still correct. A UK visa alone does not automatically entitle the bearer to enter Ireland.

Nationals of the following 17 countries who hold a valid UK "C" visa can make use of a trial visa-waiver scheme to enter Ireland:

Bahrain
Belarus
Bosnia and Herzegovina
P.R. China (excl Hong Kong/Macau)
India
Kazakhstan
Kuwait
Montenegro
Oman
Qatar
Russian Federation
Saudi Arabia
Serbia
Turkey
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
Uzbekistan

UK visas issued to any other nationalities are not valid for entry to Ireland.

And even when travelling to Ireland under the Visa Waiver Programme, they are still supposed to submit to immigration controls in both directions. They are not covered by the CTA arrangements.

The Visa Waiver can only be obtained AFTER the holder has legally entered the UK (but the Visa Waiver passenger does not have to arrive from the UK). A UK "C" visa, and a passport from one of those countries that does not show a valid UK entry stamp will result in a refusal to enter Ireland.

orbitmic

^^^

irishguy28

Ireland is actually already alarmed at the prospect of the UK sleepwalking into a "Brexit" - and there are worries that the CTA wouldn't survive a British departure from the EU.

FrancisA

Quite.

Of course the issue that most UK politicians fail to explain to the public is that should the UK exit the EU and wish to continue to trade with the EU, it would probably have to sign a similar agreement to those in place with Norway and Switzerland. Both of them have to pay a substantial amount to the cost of EU regulation (over which they have no voice or vote) and have to permit the free movement of people, including a right for EU citizens to live and work in those countries.

If the UK wants freedom to control EU immigration and set its own regulations; without very substantial concessions indeed from the EU (which no-one can currently claim will definitely be forthcoming), the UK would have to forego most if not all trade with the EU.

A naive combination of sleepwalking and dreaming methinks.

Swanhunter

So very very true.

orbitmic

+2 ^

Tim1975

I think that on balance we should join Schengen. But I take issue with your implication that lack of trust of foreigners to operate immigration controls is misplaced. All the illegals in France trying to sneak into the UK on trucks have got through the Schengen boarder somewhere.

FrancisA

But when they also sneak into the UK, bypassing UK border controls, that is hardly a ringing endorsement of our system being superior and we have the advantage of being an island!

The point that I was making was that when the Schengen zone was being set up, certain newspapers ran hysterical articles on how foreigners could not be trusted to maintain effective border controls that have been the bedrock of the British nation for a thousand years. "Would you trust your border to the Poles", the headlines rang out in a particularly xenophobic way.

My main gripe is that if the UK had entered Schengen and only a fraction of the money saved on not having border controls with the rest of Europe had been invested in intelligence-lead immigration initiatives targeted at illegal entry, we would today have both less expensive and more effective border security.

Unfortunately, in the current climate, few politicians are brave enough to suggest such heresy to the disbelieving public.

kt74

Back OT

I tend to get more problems with customs than immigration... which sort of makes sense - even though I have an exotic passport, I'll make day trips around the EU for my day job, so ex-EUs are no different to that

However, wandering through customs with no bags, not in a suit, and answering questions honestly ("Why are you in Norway?" "To change planes and fly to Sydney"; "From Stavanger to Sydney?" "Well, it saved me NOK20,000"; "What are you going to do here?" "Dunno, haven't decided, probably go to town and get a cup of coffee - what do you recommend?") doesn't really help your cause...

Land-of-Miles

This is absolute nonsense. Schengen works as a practical proposition for most EU countries as they have porous and difficult to police land borders. The UK and Ireland as islands have a far more robust ability to police their borders properly.

The failure in the UK to control immigration comes from lack of investment and spend prioritisation. If the UK adopted exit checks for instance this would practically double the required size of UK Border Agents.

Policing the border is more important than stopping a few stray Albanians bound for a UK car washing site. In an era of high terrorism risk it is a vital national security issue.

As for the EU that is a discussion for omni but I would cheerfully vote no to continuing EU membership.

FrancisA

I personally don't remember the GDR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria or Yugoslavia having particularly porous borders.

I certainly don't remember anyone suggesting that Europe (and not just EU countries) adopt the Schengen agreement because they were all hopeless at border control.

I do however remember offensive xenophobic headlines in the right-wing press in the UK.

There is a difference between failure to control immigration (if that means keeping the numbers down to some artificial set limit) and failure to control the UK border. Whilst the UK border is not perfect (witness illegal stowaways on cross-channel lorries), few would describe it as poorly controlled.

My point is that it is over-controlled in an expensive and pointless way. I can see no benefit at all from subjecting UK or other European citizens coming to the UK from other European countries to border controls. None of this makes any difference to the threat of terrorism. All it does is pander to those who mistakenly believe that such measures have a positive effect. The same argument applies to putting more bobbies on the beat - all reassurance rather than making any real difference..

These resources would be better spent on intelligence to target the terrorist threat and to prevent illegal immigration.

But the UK has reintroduced exit controls (for the first time since their abolition in 1998). Airline provision of exiting passenger data has been going on for some months. Land and sea border information collection went live this week. It hasn't doubled the size of the UK Border Force, as the responsibility has been passed on to the travel provider.

However, I can really see absolutely no point in this either, except as a way to pander to certain elements of the the public and perhaps to collect some data that might show that more people are exiting permanently than thought, hence reducing the net immigration figure.

Some claim an advantage in that this will catch people who have overstayed their visa. What? Leaving? So we can detain them, haul them before a court and then deport them at considerable additional cost to the UK tax payer, which is unlikely to be recouped.

I am sorry, but I for one see the UK's policy on border control and immigration as driven by ill-informed popular rantings rather than a rational thought-through policy.