First look at the new blue British passports about to come into circulation

[-:Undertaker:-]

First look at the new British passport

PM Boris Johnson MP and Home Secretary Priti Patel MP showcase and announce the new passport design

Britain reverts to its Prussian blue passport colour next month as the new contract for passport production begins.

The dark blue passport, that was first introduced in 1922 with the Imperial Passport, permitted travel across all the British Empire until the 1960s when colonies and dominions began issuing their own passports and the Empire transformed into the Commonwealth. To this day, former British colonies still have navy blue passports such as India, Canada, New Zealand, Iraq, South Africa, Australia and many more.

The British passport then changed colour to burgundy in 1988 with European harmonisation of passports.

The new design has advanced security features in line with other nations with e-Passports such as America, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the EU, Japan, Singapore, Norway and Iceland.

On the back, the passport will have the floral emblems of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland patterned into the outside cover skin.

The words BRITISH PASSPORT replace EUROPEAN UNION at the top of the passport.

New blue British passport rollout to begin in March https://t.co/wvEPfvil6k

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) February 22, 2020

Boris got his blue passport pic.twitter.com/cYV9Vu7cMT

— Guido Fawkes (@GuidoFawkes) February 21, 2020

Looks good. How nice to see BRITISH PASSPORT written where EUROPEAN UNION once was.

If I go abroad again to work/live, I will need to renew earlier (expires 2021) so I will likely renew this summer and get one.

Thoughts?

[Triz]

I think I prefer this colour actually... Although maybe that's just because it's different and I like change once in a while.

I assume the EU ones can be used until they expire

[dbgtz]

ah excellent, a weaker passport

[FlyingJesus]

PRUSSIAN blue???!?!?!?! Those bloody Germans ruling us again eh

This is such a cringey non-issue, like sure change them to show where they're from etc but twitter posts posing with them is just sad

[-:Undertaker:-]

Here's (not very good) comparison shot.

[Triz]

People twitter pose for their food they're about to eat... I think we can let this pose slide lol

[-:Undertaker:-]

PRUSSIAN blue???!?!?!?! Those bloody Germans ruling us again eh

This is such a cringey non-issue, like sure change them to show where they're from etc but twitter posts posing with them is just sad

Symbolism does matter though. The wording change is actually more important than the colour in my eyes.

Interesting discussion I came across on Twitter earlier, regarding why Britain prints 'BRITISH PASSPORT' across the top and other countries don't for example print 'AMERICAN PASSPORT' or 'RUSSIAN PASSPORT' across the top. This is because of the imperial legacy when we all had one passport, so every passport across the Empire had 'BRITISH PASSPORT' across the top as everyone was a British subject but then the dominion/colony was listed below where today we have 'UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND'. It's like a hangover from the Empire, plus with the fact we still have various colonies (Bermuda, the Falklands, the Caymans etc) who are British... but who aren't part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.