Comment by outop
1 year ago
Have you travelled between the UK and Ireland? You most definitely do not need a passport and do not need "equivalent ID". You can travel (by boat) with a student card, driving license, photographic travel pass (ie over-60s pass, young person rail pass), or photographic id from your work.
The check is very much "don't stop walking but hold your ID-looking thing in your hand so a nonchalant man can glance at it". You would attract very little attention with someone else's UK or Irish driving license, a bit more if you decided to test the waters with a weird form of ID.
Children can travel with a birth certificate (no photo).
You need more than this to get on an aeroplane, but that also applies to domestic flights in the UK.
If you get the boat and show eg. a Romanian student card, they might ask you where your passport is, somewhat reasonably since you would have needed it to travel to the UK or to Ireland. They would accept an ID card probably and might let you in with legit looking non-government ID.
That's the sea border. You can cross the land border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland without any form of ID at all, government-issued, photographic or otherwise. Lots of people do it every day by car or bus and it would not remotely occur to them to take ID with them.
So the Romanian student would have no problem travelling between London and Dublin without showing anything since they could get a boat Glasgow- Belfast and then get a bus to Dublin.
If this was your best example of governments lying and changing the rules, it's not a very good one (and is also kind of offensive to Irish and British people).
> You need more than this to get on an aeroplane, but that also applies to domestic flights in the UK.
Can you clarify what you mean by "more than this"?
I've travelled on many domestic flights within the UK, and ID is not routinely checked.
> If this was your best example of governments lying and changing the rules
Ouch.
The common travel area has its origins way back in 1923, the rules are clear, no-one is lying.
It's just that it's hard to prove you are entitled to its benefits without having an ID document with you that - if you're entitled - it says you don't have to have with you...
When did you last travel on a UK domestic flight? You definitely need government issued ID.
You are suggesting that having to show any photographic ID is the same as having to show a passport. That's obviously silly.
No one has to prove that "they are entitled to not show a passport" by showing British or Irish ID. This is a fantasy.
On the boat everyone, British, Irish or other, has to show ID of some kind. No one has to show a passport. At the land border no one has to show anything.
> When did you last travel on a UK domestic flight? You definitely need government issued ID
"a spokesperson for the CAA, said: “UK aviation security regulations do not require a passenger’s identity to be checked for security purposes prior to boarding a domestic flight, in the same way when travelling within the mainland on a train or bus. Any further requirement on behalf of the carrier to provide identification may be a condition of travel by the carrier itself.”"
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/british...
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