Runnymede

[Мастер]

So I found this.

https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0ftrxhx ... in-england

I'm not sure if they are exaggerating, but they are claiming there is a small bit of the US in Runnymede, where there is a JFK memorial. A gift from the UK to the US. Not far from where King John gave rights to his nobles.

Apparently you do not need your passport to visit it (if you are already in the UK). You might need some form of identification if you drive or take a train there though.

My first thought is, what if relations between the UK and the US deteriorate sharply, and the UK tries to blockade it? Will there have to be a Runnymede airlift, like the one in Berlin? I guess it would have to be by helicopter, because the land is too small for a full airport. Maybe they can land microlights there.

But since no one actually lives there, I guess the Americans could just let it be blockaded for a while. Probably the grass would grow up and be full of weeds, so it would start to look not so nice for a while. But if left long enough, it should revert to whatever the natural landscape for that part of England is.

What if they discover some endangered species living there? Will the US EPA regulate it?

What if they discover there is oil or natural gas under the ground there?

What if some local hooligans start meeting there, and planning terrorist attacks, like smashing windows of people who support rival football teams? Will the UK military invade to prevent the Americans from harbouring terrorists there?

What if you have a single entry visa to the UK? If you enter the UK, then go to this place, and return, are you now an illegal immigrant in the UK?

So many questions . . .

[tubeswell]

Will there have to be a Runnymede airlift, like the one in Berlin?.

Maybe a Runnymede Wall topped with barbed wire with guard towers every 50 yards.

I'd say the symbolic gifting of land to the USA at Lizzie's behest was her backhanded way of letting everyone know that 'the US legal system is safe with us', just in case ...

[Richard A]

I never knew that!

In fact, there are a number of invisible borders. I'm not sure whether the US issues single-entry visas, but if it does, I'm not sure that visitors to NYC holding them become illegals when they return from a tour of the UN building.

Schengen, of course, does issue single-entry visas; the Missus had a number of them before obtaining British citizenship. And little known fact (outside Europe): although there are some states that are part of Schengen but not the EU (e.g. Norway or Switzerland), there are others which are part of neither but have open borders with the Schengen zone. A single-entry Schengen visa holder visiting Rome who went around St. Peter's Basilica would, I guess, technically be illegal when they walked back through the colonnade into Italy, but I can't see it actually happening. Similarly one whose tour of southern France and northern Italy took them through Monaco (although that was a border that was shut during the pandemic). Andorra, because it decided to set itself up as a duty free zone, is different: you are definitively checked out of France/Spain when you enter it. In fact, there are even online warnings about this: if you have a Schengen visa, make sure it's multi-entry if you want to visit Andorra.

But tubeswell's point about a Wall raises an interesting point. There were very definite border controls between East and West Berlin (!) - but they appeared to be all on the GDR side. West Berlin had an interesting arrangement, of which Arneb can speak at length, whereby it was it was an Allied occupied territory, not part of the Federal Republic, but was treated for immigration and some other purposes as part of the FRG, so presumably West German border guards could have been posted alongside the American soldiers on the south side of Checkpoint Charlie, but in practice they weren't. The Federal Republic seemed to take a similar approach: only once did I ever experience a passport check at Helmstedt as distinct from Marienborn. So I guess someone on a German single-entry visa who did a day-trip to East Berlin would have been illegal when they returned.

[Arneb]

No West German Federal border guards in West Berlin. None, ever - the Allieds were very particular about this point. No Bundeswehr soldiers, no customs officials, no Federal policeman ever entered West Berlin in uniform. Everything to do with the Gewaltmonopol - monopoly on coercive force - of the State was in the hands of the Allied Forces and, where authorities and responsibilities were devolved to them, the Berliner Polizei.

It was less strict in other matters. Berlin (West) hosted some Federal Offices, IIRC, the Federal Environmental Office was one of them. The Bundestag used to stage a few sessions in West Berlin's Reichstag building just to make a point. and the Bundesversammlung convened there in 1968 to elect the Federal President - only to be maddened by near-constant sonic booms from Soviet fighter jets that just so happened to have an important aerial manneuver scheduled for the day just outside West Berlin. After the Four Powers Agreement on Berlin in 1971, the FRG agreed not to pursue the matter further, and no important Federal State funtions were carried out in Berlin anymore even though the Republic reserved the right to do so.

IIRC, the only border controls at the West Berlin borders were done on entering foreigners, if at all. Which makes sense keeping in mind that the FRG considered itself to be Germany and the GDR to be Germany, too.

[Richard A]

No border guards or customs officials at all - I didn't know that. I always assumed that the officers at Tegel (the one place I did encounter West Berlin border controls) were West German. I guess from what you say that they were Berliner Polizei. For non-British readers, this would not have been obvious. While several countries - France, Spain, China come to mind - have their borders guarded by the police, the UK does not: here, it has always been by separate agencies.

And trust me, as a foreigner who amassed my fair share of GDR Tagesvisen, I never once encountered a Western border control coming back.

But back to the original subject of the thread. I guess if someone seriously defaced the Runnymede monument, this would be a violation of US Federal law, leading to a potential extradition. And given recent discussion of such acts on other threads, I'm OK with that!

[Lianachan]

Apparently “the area remains under the sovereignty of the United Kingdom” which presumably settles all the legal issues? I didn’t know that about West Berlin either, but I’ve never been to Berlin. My German visits were to the west and the south, and what feels like 100 years ago.