Sir, – There has been much fanfare about the statement from David Davis, the British secretary of state for exiting the European Union, that he guarantees “without any qualification” to retain the common travel area (CTA) with Ireland after the UK leaves the European Union, but I am not convinced that means much in practice.
Contrary to common belief, the CTA does not permit completely free movement of people between the UK and Ireland. The CTA only permits citizens of Ireland and/or the UK to travel between the two countries without a passport.
This exemption does not apply to citizens of other countries, who in theory still require a passport (and in many cases a visa) to even walk across the Irish Border. Furthermore, the CTA agreement says nothing about border controls. As anyone who crossed the Border during the Troubles can attest, lengthy queues, identification checks and detailed questioning all coexisted with the CTA back then, and there is nothing in the existing agreement to prevent that happening again. To make matters worse, the only straightforward way to prove that one has Irish or British citizenship is to show a passport, so in effect, anyone can be asked to show a passport in order to prove they are eligible for passport-free travel!
The Irish authorities have applied this logic at airports for many years. For example, about 15 years ago, my family was initially refused entry at Dublin airport after arriving from the UK with only driving licences, as this did not prove what citizenship we held. Similarly, there have been reports of Irish officials boarding buses and trains between North and South to check documentation, apparently in search of illegal immigrants. To my knowledge, the UK authorities do not currently adopt similar practices, but if they wish, they could do all of this and more without changing any aspect of the existing CTA agreement. As such, guaranteeing the retention of the CTA completely misses the point. – Yours, etc,
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JACK NORTHWOOD,
Murrumbeena,
Victoria,
Australia.
Sir, – What a pity to see Britain take a further step toward leaving Europe, as MPs vote in favour of starting Brexit. It calls to mind a line from Samuel Johnson's The Vanity of Human Wishes: "How nations sink, by darling schemes oppressed". – Yours, etc,
COLIN WALSH,
Templeogue,
Dublin 6W.