Cayman’s premier, Alden McLaughlin, on December 15^th 2013, issued a statement concerning the issuance of passports by the United Kingdom (UK).

He said he had “grave concerns” on the issue of replacing locally printed non-biometric “Cayman Islands” passports with UK printed biometric passports.

At present, persons in the Cayman Islands who want a UK passport must obtain them directly from the UK.

Persons in Cayman, however, who want a Cayman Islands passport can obtain them from the George Town Passport Office here.

A friend of mine telephoned me about it very concerned as various persons had told her that this was the start of direct rule of the Cayman Islands by the UK.

I told her that was nonsense.

The Cayman Islands is a British Overseas Territory and now, because of security concerns, the UK is planning to discontinue to allow ALL its disparate territories the right to issue passports at the end of this year (2014).

Not just the Cayman Islands – EVERYONE!

The U.K. issued passports contain chips with biometric data on the person whose name is on the passport, while the Cayman issued ones do not.

That is the only reason and there are no plots for the British gunboats to be calling at the end of the year.

Where the premier does have a major concern is the inability of people in Cayman to obtain passports immediately in case of emergency. He said, “This is essential, often meaning the difference between life and death. Many in this House know of a recent incident in which a veteran seaman who hasn’t travelled since he gave up his life at sea had a heart attack and had to be airlifted to Miami. He did not have a current passport, as he did not see the need for one. If we had not had the ability to produce an emergency passport for him, his family would be in mourning over his death at this time of Christmas.”

McLaughlin also said:

“Our current local stock levels for non-biometric are expected to last until December 2014; however, additional non-biometric passport stock will be required to address emergency passports in the future, and to facilitate the expected “run” on locally issued passports when the repatriation of passport production is announced. Additional expenditure on local passport systems and stocks will be necessary if the repatriation of passport printing is again deployed past the current December 2014 deadline.

“We will be purchasing a large batch of non-biometric passport stock to prepare for long-term issuance of emergency passports.  However, it is unknown when the United States will discontinue acceptance of non-biometric passports, which would be issued by the P&CSO for emergency travel.

“Long-term provisions for locally printed emergency passports remain a concern as the providers of the laminate for the non-biometric stock of passports will no longer produce the laminate after this last batch. Therefore, once the stock is depleted, options for emergency passports are a critical unknown risk.”

He is also concerned the name “Cayman Islands” will be lost and the high cost of implementing a fully automated system if we were to go that route.

He is not in favour of the cheaper option of Cayman Islands passports being “retired and replaced by full British Passports”.

His suggestion is to “participate in the passport printing repatriation project now being undertaken for Gibraltar and the Crown Dependencies. We see the work with Gibraltar as the most progressive option, reducing the costs to the Cayman Islands, while allowing the Cayman Islands to rapidly advance the repatriation variant passport printing”.

He has requested “a modification where that the UK printed passports are returned to the Cayman Islands Passport and Corporate Office for local distribution”.

We will inform you immediately we hear of the UK’s decision and I hope any thoughts you might have of our country being imminently governed by the diabolical English in London has been disbursed.