‘Embarrassing, petty and pathetic’: Home Office ridiculed over tweet announcing return of blue passports

‘It’s like Grand Big Mac is back in participating McDonalds’

They have been billed by Brexiteers as a symbol of “sovereignty and independence” – a statement of revolt against meddling bureaucrats in Brussels.

For others the return of blue passports – manufactured in Poland by a Franco-Dutch company – epitomises the absurdity of the UK’s departure from the EU, and serves as unwelcome reminder that Britons voted away their automatic right to live and work across the continent.

Now, as the Passport Office this week begins issuing travel documents in the colour first launched in 1920, the Home Office appears keen for the country to be united in enthusiasm.

“Britons will once again be able to travel with a blue passport when the iconic colour returns for the first time in almost 30 years,” declared a post on the department’s Twitter account on Monday, alongside a video showing off an example of the vaunted booklet in its new finery.

Not everyone was feeling nostalgic.

“This is a post BY THE HOME OFFICE,” came one incredulous response. “So embarrassing, and petty and pathetic.”

Journalist Seamus O’Reilly suggested the government department responsible for the UK’s law and order was “tweeting like the Grand Big Mac is back in participating McDonalds”.

Others simply felt the benefits of the passport paint job were outweighed by the downsides.

“The UK’s new blue passport will be a constant reminder that we used to have the right to live and work in 28 countries, but now in only one,” tweeted Andrew Stroehlein, European media director at Human Rights Watch.

Lawyer Peter Stefanovic was more upbeat, if somewhat less sincere: “Some good news at last! Brexit may be set to cost the UK more than £200 billion in lost economic growth by the end of this year but we will once again be able to travel with a blue passport. Result!”

There were also those who felt compelled to point out the UK could have had blue passports at any point in the last 30 years, and that Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government had switched the colour to burgundy under no duress from the EU.

“I want my classic Thatcher-approved burgundy passport back! How dare the Iron Lady’s memory be traduced by the introduction of a Croatia blue document,” joked one Twitter user.

Perhaps the most widespread complaint on social media, however, was that the dark “blue” passports were not even what they were claimed to be.

“They keep saying that passport is blue but it’s clearly black,” was a typical remark.

Some, however, were able to look on the bright side. Seb Dance, who lost his position as a Labour MEP because of Brexit, tweeted magnanimously: “Well done on the design. It’s a lovely thing to stare at in the long passport queues.”