E-Borders ditched?

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rallyveteran

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The Home Affairs Select Committee has effectively holed the E-Borders scheme below the waterline with this conclusion from their report published today:

"We conclude that it is only in exceptional cases, based exclusively on the conduct of the individual concerned rather than as part of a blanket requirement, that an EU Member State can impose any requirement other than simple production of a valid identity document to restrict the entry into or exit from that Member State of an EU citizen. The e-Borders programme is therefore, as far as we can ascertain, likely to be illegal under the EU Treaty. (Paragraph 48)"

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmhaff/170/170.pdf
 
rallyveteran said:
The Home Affairs Select Committee has effectively holed the E-Borders scheme below the waterline with this conclusion from their report published today:

"We conclude that it is only in exceptional cases, based exclusively on the conduct of the individual concerned rather than as part of a blanket requirement, that an EU Member State can impose any requirement other than simple production of a valid identity document to restrict the entry into or exit from that Member State of an EU citizen. The e-Borders programme is therefore, as far as we can ascertain, likely to be illegal under the EU Treaty. (Paragraph 48)"

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmhaff/170/170.pdf
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Over to the Public Accounts Committee now to see how much money they've wasted on it?
 
eBorders and this government is basically the problem. Control freaks who just don't know where to stop.

Yes, we do need secure borders in the respect that only people entitled to enter are allowed to enter and the scrotes are kept out. Of course, with the EU any old murderer, rapist and pick pocket can come over here without declaring any previous record, but that is the price we pay for the freedom and membership of the EU (Which, by the way, I am against as a federal entity)

But Labour, in its usual way went for the totalitarian option and decided that every body entering and leaving the UK needed to be fingerprinted, photographed and have all travel details and credit card numbers captured and held on a database for ten years.

What was wrong with just checking my passport against a watch list and being bid "have a wonderful holiday, Mr Catastrophe"?

Yes, I know that I have my fingerprint taken every time I enter the US and that the Ozzies book me in and out, but the USA is free to do what it wants, the Australians at least know who the overstayers are without all the biometric data being collected.

But the final straw, as we know, was the Stalanist plan for all us boaters to make an internet application to enter and leave the country 24 hours before the trip, which was totally unworkable, and plain to anyone who has ever owned a boat.

I hope eBorders sinks into the Nu Labour pile of sh*t they have created and that a simple Australian style unobtrusive system is adopted along with increased coastal vigilance. In fact, I think more people would be happy to be boarded by UKBA 'soldiers' if they knew that there was some give and take applied to yachtsmen.

We are not a special case, but it is OUR country and not a prison.
 
emsworthy said:
Who says being member of the EU doesn't have its advantages! :)
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I scan read the documents quoted.

Why don't they acknowledge that our masters in Europe said it was illegal to apply this to EU members (and therefore unworkable) instead of dressing it up as if it came from within the UK shores!
 
It was not just a Labour policy. I raised the e-borders issue earlier in the year with my local MP, a hard-line front bench Tory, hoping for an answer on the lines that they would scrap it when in power. But his answer basically supported such border controls. So both parties seem to want it - but presumably vary in detail...
 
I've just speed read the document and while they raise many issues with the various methods of transport, no mention or representation was made on behalf of the leisure boaters problem.

Obviously, we are not a problem after all.
 
Why didn't the people in charge check *before* they started on what the legalities of this were? Another case of total incompetence at the top.

A recent pan European IT system I was responsible for was intended to gather data about applicants for positions internally within a company. After commissioning the basic design I got all the local HR managers together in a room in Paris and we thrashed out what was legal locally and what wasn't. ( the list of common, allowed data got very short ) then off to the company solicitors to run it all past them with a specific brief to address cross border legalities including the potential for data to migrate cross border.

The result was a system that went live without offending anyone but that served its purpose well.

Surely this is product/project managment 101. Just who the hell are running these projects?
 
Problem is of course that it wouldn't be PC these days just to apply the border checks to those with brown faces, despite the fact that they are 99% of the terrorist threat. So we all have to be checked in and out. The old white granny wielding a zimmer frame gets the same treatment as a mullah fresh from Pakistan. Nonsense but there it is.

As for the system proposed for us boaters, I think Tim has got it right (for a change) with this post http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=222950
It's the uneducated empire builders of the civil service that are the problem. Gone are the dayus when there was any expertise or common sense there.
 
nimbusgb said:
Why didn't the people in charge check *before* they started on what the legalities of this were? Another case of total incompetence at the top.
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Not the first time. I work in the video games industry and it was discovered in the summer that 25 years ago the British government had neglected to pass the BBFC legislation past the European Commissioners.

So, a BBFC rating on a game or DVD currently has no weight in law until they can get EU permission in the New Year.
 
Basic question I know - but does this select committee have any executive authority over UKBA or does it simply advise? If the latter there's no real reason to believe that they will stop just because they are advised to.
 
Sinc said:
Basic question I know - but does this select committee have any executive authority over UKBA or does it simply advise? If the latter there's no real reason to believe that they will stop just because they are advised to.
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Thats the problem... they will just ignore the law until it has been tested in the European court.... so someone will have to be prosecuted... and then take it the court... before it gets chucked out. Could be years. And unless one of the big carriers do it, it may never get tested.
 
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