London : The UK passport could turn dark blue again after Brexit under a 490 million-pounds ($614 million) contract to redesign and produce a new version of the document, a media report said on Sunday.
The passport is routinely redesigned every five years and analaysts view the new contract as a way to ditch the European Union (EU) burgundy cover in favour of a return to the colour of the past, the Guardian report said.
The current contract expires in 2019, the year the UK is set to leave the EU after Prime Minister Theresa May began the formal two-year withdrawal process last week.
Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell said the burgundy passport had been a source of national “humiliation”.
“The restoration of our own British passport is a clear statement to the world that Britain is back. Our British identity was slowly but surely being submerged into an artificial European one that most Brits felt increasingly unhappy about,” he said.
“The humiliation of having a pink EU passport will now soon be over and the UK nationals can once again feel pride and self-confidence in their own nationality when travelling, just as the Swiss and Americans can do,” Rosindell said.
The Home Office said no decision has been made about the colour of the passport under the new contract.–IANS
