Tom Griffin (London, OK): Last week, Home Office ministers announced they were abandoning a clause in the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill that would extended immigration controls to air and sea travel between Britain and Northern Ireland. The climbdown came in the face of opposition from the Lords, where it was confirmed on Monday that new immigration spot checks on the Irish border will also now be shelved.
Although the government remain committed to the planned changes in principle, it looks as if the Common Travel Area is safe for the moment. As Slugger's Brian Walker has noted, it's a pragmatic arrangement supported by all sides in Ireland, if not always for the same reasons:
The particular Irish (north and south) interest in the Bill was to avoid the unique status in Britain of Irish people becoming downgraded more or less by accident because of new restrictions on foreign immigration. “British Unionists” of course are Siamese twins with southern Irish passport holders because of the facts of geography. The Irish, note, are not regarded as foreign in the 1949 Act, passed when the Republic cut its last links with the Commonwealth. Since then , tightening up through the British Nationality Act and successive anti terrorism Acts have pulled away from British- Irish exceptionalism, while the GFA has pulled in the opposite direction, towards interchangeability of citizenship.
