Bordering on the impossible.

Head of UK Border Force Suspended

The head of the UK Border force and two UK Border Agency Officials have been suspended following allegations that staff were told to reduce the quality of identity checking on non EU nationals as they entered the UK.

 In July the UK Home Office said that checks on EU citizens might be reduced in what is described as ‘limited circumstances’ in that these travellers could have their biometric passport checked upon the discretion of officials rather than be an automatic process. Such a move is intended to speed up the processing of travellers at borders.

Instead of this, Brodie Clark, the head of the UK Border Force is alleged to have authorised abandoning biometric checks on nationals of countries outside the European Economic area, the verification of their fingerprints and other checks.

            Two investigations have been ordered. A two week inquiry to discover to what extent checks were scaled down and to determine the implications of this and another on wider issues related to the performance of the UKBA.

Incredulity and fury

Official sources advise that Ministers cannot believe their eyes and ears. The BBC is reporting that Theresa May’s reaction to this was one incredulity and fury and Keith Vaz MP (Labour) has stated that this threatens the security of the UK and that the ‘UKBA continues to fail’.  Both Parties blame each other for the alleged failings while he Public and Commercial Services Union pointed to job cuts, staffing shortages and the need to give the give the travelling public the quickest public service.

This comes only a day after the publication of a report describing how almost 125,000 immigration cases have been effectively archived because UKBA has lost track of the principals in the case. Effectively losing the population of town the size of Cambridge, UK.

One so soon after the other would appear to be a double portion of egg on the face so we wonder if Ministers anger is what it seems.

Not what it seems

Cork Monkey feels that Mr Brodie was between a rock and a hard place and neither of which were situations of his own making. The UK has some of the busiest ports in the world and Ministers want 100% security with no inconvenience to travellers and especially no inconvenient queues or waiting, however, in the current environment this is not possible.         If Mr Brodie had not been suspended for this I suspect he would have been suspended for not enabling throughput amid media picture of crowds at airports and headlines like ‘Border Farce’.

Ministers know this and must know what it takes to deal with this. Decisions on security and convenience need to be made and it is only when the inconvenient truth is made known that Ministers and other pundits shake their heads and cry shame!

When will ministers, and we the public, learn that we cannot have our cake and eat it.

CM