The an­nounce­ment by the British gov­ern­ment on March 12 that it was im­pos­ing a visa re­quire­ment on na­tion­als of Trinidad and To­ba­go trav­el­ling to, or through, that coun­try, con­tin­ues to ran­kle peo­ple here be­cause of the un­fair­ness of the im­po­si­tion, the cost and in­con­ve­nience of the ap­pli­ca­tion process and the il­log­ic of the de­ci­sion.

The visa im­po­si­tion by Britain has oth­er con­se­quences. On Fri­day, the Re­pub­lic of Ire­land, which is not part of the UK, an­nounced that it too was im­pos­ing a visa re­quire­ment on T&T na­tion­als.

The rea­son giv­en by the UK gov­ern­ment for im­pos­ing the visa re­quire­ment was said to be a rise in the num­ber of asy­lum ap­pli­ca­tions from na­tion­als of this coun­try. One has to won­der whether Re­pub­lic of Ire­land of­fi­cials would prof­fer the same ra­tio­nale as the British, giv­en that Ire­land is not known to be a mag­net for Tri­ni trav­ellers.

The is­sue of the visa im­po­si­tions was even the sub­ject of what some may in­ter­pret as diplo­mat­ic pi­cong, when the head of the Eu­ro­pean Union (EU) del­e­ga­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go, Pe­ter Cavendish, not­ed that T&T na­tion­als can still trav­el visa-free to Eu­rope.

“Let me re­it­er­ate, the EU has no visas, no du­ties and no tar­iffs for its re­la­tions with Trinidad and To­ba­go,” said Am­bas­sador Cavendish, speak­ing as the host of Eu­rope Day cel­e­bra­tions at Mille Fleurs, Port-of-Spain, last Fri­day evening.

And T&T's new Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, Sean Sobers, re­spond­ing to an en­quiry from Guardian Me­dia pub­lished on Tues­day, said he be­lieves "a way for­ward" has been found on the mat­ter. He plans to take a note to Cab­i­net on the is­sue, pos­si­bly as soon as to­day.

In­ter­est­ing­ly, the UK gov­ern­ment pub­lished on Mon­day a white pa­per en­ti­tled 'Restor­ing con­trol over the im­mi­gra­tion sys­tem'. That doc­u­ment makes clear that Lon­don wants to con­trol the num­ber of peo­ple mi­grat­ing to the UK.

Among the first words in the pub­li­ca­tion is the fore­word by the British Prime Min­is­ter Keir Starmer, in which he com­plains that in 2023, "un­der the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment, in­ward mi­gra­tion ex­plod­ed to over a mil­lion peo­ple a year, four times the lev­el com­pared with 2019."

Not­ing that Britain had be­come "a one-na­tion ex­per­i­ment in open bor­ders," Mr Starmer point­ed out that the dam­age done to his coun­try is in­cal­cu­la­ble, as "pub­lic ser­vices and hous­ing ac­cess have been placed un­der too much pres­sure."

Prime Min­is­ter Starmer's con­cern about a flood of for­eign­ers ar­riv­ing on Britain's doorsteps and ex­pect­ing to be fed, clothed, housed and en­ter­tained un­til their asy­lum, or oth­er claims, are clar­i­fied, is quite un­der­stand­able.

What is in­tol­er­a­ble is his sug­ges­tion, in tabling the white pa­per, that Britain risks be­com­ing "an is­land of strangers," as that may sug­gest his dis­qui­et is with a cer­tain kind of mi­grant.

It is al­so not ac­cept­able that Britain im­posed a visa re­stric­tion on T&T na­tion­als be­cause 439 peo­ple from this coun­try ap­plied for asy­lum there in 2024, when there was a to­tal of 108,138 ap­pli­cants. Less than half of one per cent pos­es ab­solute­ly no is­sue for Britain.