ID card rollout begins

[Peter Tomlinson]

Roland Perry wrote:
> In article <91EEBB26-4C11-4502-A81E-3233461639D6@batten.eu.org>, Ian 
> Batten <igb@batten.eu.org> writes
>>> "If your visa is from a country fully applying the Schengen rules, 
>>> it automatically allows you to travel to the other Schengen 
>>> countries as well [1]. Moreover, if you have a valid residence 
>>> permit from one of those Schengen countries, it is equivalent to a 
>>> visa [2].
>> But not, crucially, a passport.  So:
>>
>> 1.  Country-X passport plus a visa for a Schengen country is 
>> equivalent to a Country-X passport plus a visa for any other Schengen 
>> country.
>>
>> 2.  Country-X passport plus a residence permit for a Schengen country 
>> is equivalent to a Country-X passport plus a visa for any other 
>> Schengen country.
>>
>> In both cases you're travelling on your Country-X passport, bolstered 
>> by visas or visa-equivalents.  What you're not doing is travelling on 
>> your residence permit: you still need your Country-X passport.
> But the visa you mention has been verified and you issued with a 
> National ID card (so says the Home Office website), and they are good 
> for travel - normally. Unless they aren't actually ID Cards, but 
> 'just' a residence permit; in which case I wish the Home office would 
> stop calling it a "national ID Card":
>
> "The introduction of national identity cards for foreign residents 
> will be followed by the first ID cards for British citizens, targeting 
> workers in sensitive roles - such as airports - from 2009."
Surely it depends on whether the new cards are issued under the ID Card 
Act (which I don't think they can be, but there might be something in 
there about them) or under EU eResident card rules for non-EEA nationals 
resident within the EU (which rules I don't know where to find). Then of 
course there is the EU Citizen Card work, but I'm not sure that that yet 
has legal status (and the spec may still not be finally agreed). 
Confused, I am. But then I'm just a WASP.

Peter