Britain's New Blue Passports Are To Be Made In The EU
22 March 2018, 07:30 | Updated: 26 April 2018, 15:40
A French-Dutch company has won the right to make the new British passports once we leave the European Union.
Brexiteers cheered the plan to revert to a classic blue passport, rather than the EU maroon cover.
But it has been reported that British firm De La Rue had lost out to Gemalto in the race to win the printing job, worth almost half a billion pounds.
The Home Office last night insisted no final decision has yet been made. A spokesperson said: “We are running a fair and open competition to ensure that the new contract delivers a high quality and secure product and offers the best value for money for customers.
"We do not require passports to be manufactured in the UK. A proportion of blank passport books are currently manufactured overseas, and there are no security or operational reasons why this would not continue."
Anti-EU campaigners hailed the decision to ditch the maroon passport, saying it's a symbol that "we're getting our country back".
The video below shows one Brexiteer trying to justify why we're spending half a billion pounds on a new passport - but it didn't go well.
Nigel Farage hailed the return of the blue passport. He told LBC: "I remember in 1988 when they abolished the British passport, they didn't just change the colour of it they put two words at the top of it 'European Union'.
"That said to me 30 years ago that our political class were basically selling out our country, our nationality, our individuality and so I fought them.
"To be honest with you the words matter more than the colour.“Taking off the words ‘European Union’ matters more than the colour.
"But going back to that navy blue colour, what it says is normal service has been resumed - we’re becoming a proper country again, that is what Brexit is going to bring us."
