The Brexit clown car has crashed into 2025 by inflicting another unwelcome scheme which disproportionately affects the north.
This latest bungle relates to the UK’s visa waiver regime, which takes effect in earnest from this week.
The new measure means all non-European visitors to the UK who do not have residency rights and who do not require a visa must now purchase a so-called Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) in advance of their trip. The ETA scheme will be extended to include European visitors from April 2.
Read more: Brexit threatens one final painful sting: All-Ireland tourism
An ETA is due to cost £10 and will be linked to a visitor’s passport. One could take the view that neither of those requirements is especially onerous and that similar schemes operate elsewhere.
But in the context of building the north’s tourism industry, it only adds a new source of friction for travellers, with as many as 70% of visitors to the north arriving via the Republic and Dublin airport’s wide range of international connections.
Read more: NI tourism sector braced for hit as full rollout of visa waiver scheme looms
It can only make visiting Northern Ireland more burdensome; there is a risk that many would-be tourists will take the view that the additional bureaucracy involved in crossing the border just isn’t worth the bother.
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That would be a mistake, of course. As a growing number of international visitors already know, the north is a wonderful place, with a constantly improving tourism offering.
Amid the waffle of the draft Programme for Government, tourism emerges as an important area for the Executive. It talks of “an innovative Tourism Strategic Action Plan that will showcase Northern Ireland as a great place to visit…” and says that - albeit with typical imprecision - “over the next few years” it will invest £1.3 billion to stimulate regeneration and tourism.
There is a risk that many would-be tourists will take the view that the additional bureaucracy involved in crossing the border just isn’t worth the bother
No wonder Conor Murphy, Stormont’s economy minister until he’s shuffled into the Seanad, has been sounding the alarm, describing the scheme as a “real kick in the teeth”. He worries that the north’s tourism industry could retreat to pre-Good Friday Agreement levels.
The British government has so far ignored years of persistent appeals for an exemption or alternative arrangements to take the north’s unique circumstances into account.
Read more: Our tourism industry is in very good health
It’s yet another example of how the Brexit fantasy continues to unravel as it meets reality. The DUP, fawning cheerleaders for leaving the EU and Boris Johnson’s dupes-in-chief, haven’t had a lot to say about this latest outworking of ‘taking back control’. Sammy Wilson thinks the Dublin government should carry out checks when visitors arrive in Ireland, though he would.
Pushing another Brexit mess made in Britain on to another government is not a serious proposal. Instead, the UK needs to show some flexibility and common sense and dismantle its tourism border.
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