Sandie Seward
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Eradicating more "Britishness" by stealth. Her Britannic Majesty's Secretary of State requests and requires in the name of Her Majesty...
For generations, those sonorous words in our passports have been seen as the guarantee that every Briton travelling abroad can "pass freely without let or hindrance".
But not in future, it seems.
The old symbols of British independence apparently don't suit the ambitions of the European treaty (which is just the discredited EU constitution in disguise).
So our passports are likely to be changed to make them more acceptable to Brussels, whether we like it or not.
Out would go all mention of the Queen. Out would go a tradition of royal protection that dates from 1414.
Instead, travellers would be saddled with a ghastly formula in bureaucratic Eurospeak that describes them as "citizens of the Union".
And as usual in matters European, the exercise is being conducted by stealth. The Home Office blandly claims there are "no current plans" to alter passports, while the Foreign Office admits the idea is "still under consideration".
Yes, you can just bet it is. Haven't we been here many times before?
Little by little - and without democratic consent - successive governments have chipped away at everything that underpins our nationhood.
And still it goes on. The Maastricht stitch-up yesterday. . . passports today. . . the EU treaty (without a referendum) tomorrow. . .
One could be forgiven for suspecting that the real aim of Europe's central planners is to turn our distinctive British identity into a distant memory.
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