All Eight DUP MP's Voted For The Border and Nationality Bill - Leading The Way To The Electronic Travel Authorisation Scheme (ETA) - Which Threatens Our Health Service Provision and Tourism in the North Warns Irish Government.

   UK’S CROSS-BORDER TRAVEL PLAN                 'HIGHLY PROBLEMATIC' 

CROSS-BORDER services face disruption following the planned introduction of a new travel document by the Conservative and Unionist Party 

Non-Irish citizens will need to apply under the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) scheme before being allowed to travel to the North of Ireland. But the planned roll-out of the scheme this year has attracted heavy criticism from a broad spectrum of organisations, from human rights groups to businesses, particularly in the tourism sector. 

Now the Dublin government has warned that the ETA "threatens the fluid nature of movement on the Island of Ireland and north-south cooperation including tourism and cross-border service provision". 

Loyalist paramilitaries have threatened the peace process and have erected anti-Irish posters targeting The Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar threatening  return to violence (read more here)👇👇IMAGE SOURCE/EXTRAMURAL©COPYRIGHT 

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◾UVF Godfathers threatening sick Nazi-style Kristallnacht

"The UK’s plans to establish an ETA-type Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) scheme that would apply to non-Irish residents of Ireland and tourists who wish to travel from south to north are highly problematic," the Department of Foreign Affairs said in a strongly worded statement. 

"The impact on tourism in the North of Ireland, for example, could be very significant as many tourists arrive in the North of Ireland via this jurisdiction. The NI Tourism Alliance and Tourism Ireland have articulated the risks very clearly." 

The DUP are claiming the NI Protocol required cross-community consent there was no cross-community consent when Brexit was imposed on them after the electorate voted against Brexit. There was no cross-community consent asked for when the DUP voted to impose Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) restrictions between north and south. 

The Home Office plans to roll out the ETA over the course of this year with full implementation by its end. On Tuesday night London played down the impact of the ETA on cross-border travel and on communities in the region. Officials claimed it will not be "onerous or burdensome". 

The Home Office also said: "There are - and will continue to to be - no routine immigration controls whatever on the Ireland-NI land border, or on journeys within the Common Travel Area." 

It comes as Taoiseach Leo Varadkar's latest comments on the post-Brexit protocol are being viewed positively in London. Downing Street, welcoming what it believes is a shift in tone from Dublin, said it had "always felt it was possible to enact the protocol in a way that was flexible". 

Here are the 8 DUP MP's who were fed-up listening to over the NI Protocol but who voted with the Tory Party on the Border and Nationality Bill and which now requires non-Irish residents to carry Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) documents that will disrupt NI Tourism 

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◾Who were the government ministers from *orthern Ireland who voted along with the Tory Party for the Border and Nationality Bill? That 'could cost the north's tourism sector up £160m'?

Mr Varadkar, who became taoiseach last month for the second time, recognised that the protocol had made unionists feel separated from the UK and said the EU was "willing to show flexibility and to make compromises". 

The Home Office plans full implementation of ETA by the end of this year. It applies to all citizens of countries that do not need a visa to enter the UK. The European Union is introducing its own ETIAS (European Travel Information and Authorisation System) visa waiver document in November but it applies only in the Schengen travel area, not Ireland. While not all details have yet been worked out, the ETA is likely to be valid for two years once successfully applied for. A government spokesperson added: "Those arriving in the UK, including NI, will need to continue to enter in line with the UK’s immigration framework, and follow Electronic Travel Authorisation rules when introduced. 

Ireland has always been full of migrants the Irish people are migrants all over the world. We should not judge others if they choose to settle in Ireland north or south treat migrants as we would choose to be treated if we were migrants in their home country 

John McGrillen, chief executive of Tourism NI, said in an interview last week: "There's a little bit of a nonsense."On the one hand the government are saying you're required to have it but on the other hand they're saying no-one will be checking to find out if you have one or not." 

Mr McGrillen, believes tourism will suffer despite assurances from London that they are working "to mitigate concerns". "If you think of an agent who has been selling Cork and Kerry for decades, and we've only started to convince these people to start to sell the North of Ireland, the risk is that when they're talking to a client they might suggest to them, 'well, you can save yourself that hassle by just staying south of the border', he said. 

"That's one of the key risks." 

Transport companies are going to be expected to check and confirm a traveller has the right documentation prior to travel and face penalties for failing to do so, according to the Home Office's own published documents. The fine could be up to £2,000 per person, the NI Affairs committee heard last year. 

The DUP and loyalism is doing it's upmost to try and reborder the north and south they are doing their very best to destroy the Good Friday Agreement. All over Brexit which the majority of the electorate in the north voted against. They got their Brexit at a very expensive cost to unionism 

The Home Office did not immediately comment on the amount. While the emphasis in the legislation passed last year was on airlines and ferry companies, the onus could land on train and bus firms, tour operators and even taxi companies. 

Translink on Tuesday night declined to comment on the potential impact. In its statement, the Department of Foreign Affairs, now led by former taoiseach Micheál Martin, said: "It is welcome that in recent months the Home Office and the NIO have articulated an increased awareness of the complexities such a scheme presents in the context of the North of Ireland and are engaging with us on this matter. 

"We will continue to press for exemptions to the UK’s ETA scheme." 

With many thanks thanks to the: Irish News and John Breslin for the original story. 

Follow these links to find out more on this story: THE Good Friday Agreement (GFA) will 'NEVER' be Renegotiated and UVF Intimidation will not Achieve the Removal of the Protocol

Important to remember that the UK govt and the DUP are not motivated by protecting the GFA or obtaining cross-community consent.

‼️New rules to apply for non-Irish or British nationals crossing the Irish #border from mid-2023.

Rebordering NI after Brexit: Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA).

Who were the government ministers from *orthern Ireland who voted along with the Tory Party for the Border and Nationality Bill? That 'could cost the north's tourism sector up £160m'?

Rebordering NI after Brexit: Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA).

             BREXIT INSTITUTE NEWS

                    June 9th, 2022. 

     THE NI/IRL PROTOCOL AND THE                        BREXIT SEA BORDER 

One of the central negotiating objectives of both the UK and EU during the Brexit process was to avoid the reintroduction of a hard border on the island of Ireland. There are many reasons for this, including geographic, economic, sociological and political factors which, combined, have come to be known as the “unique circumstances” (Connelly, 2017; European Council, 2017; Hayward, 2017, 2018). To this end, in the preamble to the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland in the Withdrawal Agreement (henceforth “the Protocol”), the UK committed to “protect North-South cooperation and its guarantee of avoiding a hard border, including any physical infrastructure or related checks and controls” (UK Government, 2019a).

However, the Protocol (UK Government, 2019b) focuses primarily on trade between Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and Ireland, and is notably light on references to the movement of people across the Irish border. In fact, of the 19 Articles contained in the Protocol, only Articles 2, 3, and 11 make and substantial reference to the movement of people, and these pertain primarily to the Common Travel Area and the rights of British and Irish nationals.

This has resulted in the increasing rebordering of Northern Ireland for people who do not fall under these protections. Specifically, The EU Settled Status and Frontier Worker Permit Schemes have the effect of bordering some EEA+ nationals (nationals of EU members states, Norway, Iceland, Lietchenstien, and Switzerland) who were already resident on the island of Ireland. Moreover, and what I focus on in this blog, is the latest proposal that will result in hardening the Irish border for non-visa nationals (people who do not need a visa to enter the UK, including EEA+ nationals) living in the border region: Electronic Travel Authorisation.

 ELECTRONIC TRAVEL AUTHORISATION 

The Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) scheme is a component of the recently passed Nationality and Borders Act (UK Government, 2022) and is designed to “give the UK more control of our borders, allowing [it] to block threats from entering the UK, whilst also providing individuals, and carriers, with more assurance at an earlier point in time about their ability to travel to the UK” (Gov.uk, 2022).

Despite attempts in the Lords to introduce an exemption for “local journeys” from Ireland to Northern Ireland for non-visa nationals resident in Ireland (Hansard, 2022), the government ultimately rejected the amendment so that, In part 1A on Electronic Travel Authorisation, section 11c states (UK Government, 2022: 76):

(3) The rules may not impose this requirement on an individual if—

(a) the individual is a British citizen, or

(b) the individual would, on arrival in the United Kingdom, be entitled to enter without leave.

(4) In relation to an individual travelling to the United Kingdom on a local journey from a place in the common travel area, subsection (3)(b) applies only if the individual would also be entitled to enter without leave if the journey were instead from a place outside the common travel area.

Put simply, this means that there are only exemptions from the ETA for British, Irish, and Commonwealth citizens with a right of abode in the UK – there is no exemption for non-visa nationals resident in Ireland (including EEA nationals who, before Brexit, could move freely across the border under Freedom of Movement rules), who will have to apply for ETA authorisation. 

There is, arguably, some logic to this. The UK is a sovereign state and the UK government has the competence to legislate for immigration rules for the whole UK. To exempt Northern Ireland from such arrangements could prove problematic as it would either leave Northern Ireland (particularly the port and airports at Belfast) as a back door from Northern Ireland into Great Britain or, require the introduction of immigration checks for people moving between different parts of the UK.

 NON-VISA RESIDENTS AND EVERYDAY              CROSS-BORDER TRAVEL 

Nevertheless, in practice the ETA will complicate life for non-visa nationals resident in Ireland and especially those whose everyday lives span the border. EEA nationals resident in Ireland and working in Northern Ireland currently require either a Frontier Worker Permit or to apply under the points-based immigration scheme. This negates their need for an ETA. However, non-visa nationals who reside on the Irish side of the land border and cross into Northern Ireland for the purposes of retail, childcare, visiting family, or socialisation will have no (legal) avenue but to apply for an ETA.

In particular, any ETA will have disproportionately negative impacts on non-visa nationals living in Donegal. The North West of Ireland lacks transport infrastructure in general and with the rest of the Republic of Ireland specifically. As such, for many of those living in the region, Derry is the central social and economic hub for many aspects of everyday life and moving across the border is often unavoidable even when the end destination is still in the Republic of Ireland. 

The UK government have promised that the ETA will be a (relatively) cheap multi-year, multi-trip pass, and that checks will not be carried out at the border (Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, 2022). However, it nonetheless discriminates against those who, until Brexit, were treated in law as if they belonged. As the Committee on the Administration of Justice notes, the ETA will “impact the ability of members of the migrant community to take part freely in cross border projects and programmes” (CAJ, 2021: 2) inflicting damage on social cohesion in the border region and potentially leading to a loss of social diversity as EEA nationals move away from (or at least actively choose not to move to) the region.

Furthermore, as the scheme affects those already resident in Ireland there are clear grounds for concern regarding inadvertent non-compliance, either through ignorance of the new rules or forgetfulness. These concerns have been raised by the CAJ (CAJ, 2021), the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee (Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, 2022), and members in the House of Lords (Gower, 2022; Hansard, 2022). The potential implications of non-compliance are particularly concerning given the Nationality and Border Act (UK Government, 2022) has increased the maximum punishment to four years imprisonment for anybody who is “required to have a valid ETA and knowingly arrives in the UK without one”. The word “knowingly” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here; it allows for criminalising long term residents of the border region who fall into inadvertent non-compliance.

Mitigating against these impacts requires, at the very least, that, as the ETA is being designed and implemented (currently scheduled for the end of 2024), there is clear communication and engagement between the UK government, the Irish government, Northern Ireland Executive, and cross-border travel operators. It also requires that the ETA is set at a price affordable to all; that there is a high-profile publicity campaign aimed at non-visa nationals living in the Irish border region to increase awareness; and that help and advice provision is set up in the border region during rollout to assist with applications and prevent inadvertent non-compliance.

To conclude, then, at this point it is certain that the UK government intends to press ahead with the Electronic Travel Authorisation scheme with no derogations for non-visa nationals who cross the Irish border. While there are some practical and political reasons for doing so, there are, as outlined here, clear negative implications for non-visa nationals resident in Ireland that can and have been foreseen. The UK government must ensure it engages with all invested parties to minimise their impact.

With many thanks to DCU Brexit Institute and Ben Rosher and Katy Hayward for the original publication. 

Ben Rosher is a political sociologist and PhD candidate at Queen’s University Belfast. His research focusses on Brexit, the Irish border, and lived experiences of ‘taking back control’. The author would like to thank Úna Boyd (CAJ), John Curtis (Commons Library), and Prof Katy Hayward (QUB) for their insight and advice. Any errors are the sole responsibility of the author.

Follow these links to find out more on this story: ‼️New rules to apply for non-Irish or British nationals crossing the Irish #border from mid-2023.

Who were the government ministers from *orthern Ireland who voted along with the Tory Party for the Border and Nationality Bill? That 'could cost the north's tourism sector up £160m'?

Rebordering NI after Brexit: Electronic Travel Authorisation

REFERENCES: 

CAJ (2021) Nationality and Borders Bill – Electronic Travel Authorisation: Briefing Note.

Connelly T (2017) Brexit and Ireland: The dangers, the opportunities, and the inside story of the Irish response. Dublin: Penguin Ireland.

Follow this link: European Council (2017) European Council (Art. 50) guidelines for Brexit negotiations. Available at:(accessed 4 May 2021). 

Follow this link: Gov.uk (2022) Nationality and Borders Bill: Electronic Travel Authorisation factsheet. Available at: (accessed 31 May 2022).

Gower M (2022) Nationality and Borders Bill: Progress of the Bill.

Follow this link: Hansard (2022) Nationality and Borders Bill. Available at: (accessed 31 May 2022) Follow this link: 

Hayward K (2017) The origins of the Irish border. Available at: (accessed 4 May 2021). 

Hayward K (2018) The pivotal position of the Irish border in the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union. Space and Polity 22(2): 238–254.

Follow this link: Northern Ireland Affairs Committee (2022) Tourism and the Common Travel Area (pt2): Oral evidence. Available at: (accessed 23 May 2022). 

UK Government (2019a) Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community.

Follow this link: UK Government (2019b) Revised Protocol to the Withdrawal Agreement. Available at: (accessed 3 December 2021).

UK Government (2022) Nationality and Borders Act 2022.