The old passports are returning though millions have never had one. What else can we bring back to baffle the young?

The news that UK passports will once again be navy blue has been greeted with joy among a certain section of leave voters, for whom the issue has been an important symbol of British sovereignty. But they aren’t a familiar sight for everybody.

The blue passport is taking back control? No, it was first imposed on us from abroad | James E Baldwin Read more

Blue passports were first introduced in the 1920s and were discontinued in 1988, leaving about 24 million people currently in the UK too young to have ever been issued one.

Their return raises the question: what other things can we bring back?

One pound notes

The £1 note was withdrawn from circulation in 1988 – the same year that British passports were changed to burgundy. The reason for withdrawing the notes was that they averaged a lifespan of only nine months – less if you accidentally put one in the washing machine – and coins would last for longer. However, with the new polymer-based notes introduced by the Bank of England and some banks in Scotland recently, a revamped £1 note could be viable again.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest An old Bank of England £1 note, with some pre-decimal coins thrown in for good measure. Photograph: PearlImage/Alamy

The death penalty

When YouGov surveyed leave and remain voters on various issues this year, one question it asked was about things people would like to be brought back after Brexit. The poll showed 52% of leave voters wanted to see a return to blue passports and 53% were in favour of restoring the death penalty.

Exiting the EU alone will not be quite enough to get hanging back on the statute books. The UK is still signed up to the the European convention on human rights, which prohibits capital punishment except in times of war or during the imminent threat of war.

Imperial measures for all

Schools have been teaching the metric system since 1974, which means nobody under the age of 47 should have any problem understanding it. But that’s no reason not to change back to pounds and ounces.

Britain’s move to metric was led by the Metrication Board from 1969-81 and pre-dates the country joining the EEC. One bonus of switching back is that we could look forward to a series of opinion pieces in the rightwing press arguing that millennials are snowflakes for not knowing how many grains are in a pennyweight.

Well, at the very least we could go back to selling pints in cans

If going fully down the route of imperial measures is seen as a step too far, perhaps we could at least sell beer in cans that contain pints – 568ml – rather than in the very-slightly-less-than-a-pint 500ml you get nowadays. For some reason, it was deemed OK to sell takeaway milk by the pint but not beer.

This would be especially helpful for Manchester’s Marble Brewery, which is embroiled in a trading standards dispute after someone complained that when you buy a 500ml can of their beer named Pint, it is misleading because you don’t get a full pint.

Jan Rogers (@jan_marble) Spoke too soon about ‘Pintgate’ disappearing up it’s own fundament. Happy Xmas @ManCityCouncil & whoever chose to report the matter. Beer called 500ml coming soon (cans only) pic.twitter.com/LOmkdr8ygg

Compulsory room-temperature free school milk



Talking of milk, famously abolished in schools by Margaret Thatcher, generations have grown up without knowing the pleasures of the milk monitor bringing round a crate of lukewarm mini bottles to make the whole class feel slightly queasy mid-morning.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A class in Wolverhampton ‘enjoying’ lukewarm milk. Photograph: PA

Incandescent lightbulbs

Another reversal of EU rules that often crops up is a demand for a return to “traditional” incandescent lightbulbs. About 30% of leave voters say they are in favour of their return. Many people feel that despite the newer bulbs offering energy savings, they don’t emit as much light or create the same warm glow of the old one. This argument against an EU-mandated law tends to ignore that the old-style lightbulbs have also been phased out in Russia, the US, Brazil and South Korea among other countries.

The new passports won’t really be like the old ones anyway

Some people have pointed out that the mock-ups of the new blue passport don’t entirely match the colour of the old ones, which people remember as being darker. And it won’t be the same size and texture of the previous design either.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Blue world order: the new passport colour doesn’t match the old one. Photograph: Chris Howes/Wild Places Photography/Alamy

The standards that govern the interoperability of computer-readable passports are set by the Civil Aviation Organisation, not the European Union, and so while there will be a different-coloured cover, not much else will change about the fundamental design. In fact, the new designs look quite similar to some blue travel documents that Britain has continued to issue while being an EU member.

Ned Donovan (@Ned_Donovan) Bizarre fact: Britain does still issue blue passports, as international travel documents for refugees. pic.twitter.com/j9JQuuJU11

Travel used to be a much simpler proposition. With those 1950s passports, a gentleman could simply ask to get the name of his wife and children added to his, and that was enough to allow them to sail through border security. After all, what wife would possibly want to travel alone back then?



But if we really want to go back in time to restore a traditional British passport, why not go further still, to the late 18th century, when British passports were patriotically written in … French?

We could have just had blue passports the whole damn time anyway

Over the years, the mythical death of the blue passport at the hands of the EU has been exaggerated: the UK has never been required by law to use burgundy. EU regulations specify the information on the front cover of a passport, but not the design or the colour. In fact, Croatia has been issuing navy EU passports since it joined the bloc in 2013.