ah207

Has this always been happening, but simply never reported in national newspapers - or have laws tightened up significantly in the past 6 months ?

In a nutshell: Man born in UK in 1974 (to German parents), with birth certificate, lived all his life (42 years) in the UK, asked by Home Office to apply for residency (and prove he can speak English etc). I'd like to think that this another one of those beauracratic type cases - an oversight on the part of the applicant, rather than outright xenophobia.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...ire-life-in-uk

macliam

No doubt there are those here who will say it's his fault for his parents being johnny foreigners!

I'm sure these cases have occurred before, but impending Brexit has drawn focus on them. However, as I've said before, the problem now is that it's almost impossible to get through the bureaucratic smokescreen to actually talk to someone and resolve it. Pressure of demand, allied to cutbacks, have resulted in a system that has no tolerance for anything but straightforward cases.

Ukkram

Seems to me that Home Office is targeting some Europeans first to avoid the Muslims shouting "racism".

BritInParis

If Mr Wolf was born in 1974 then he'll be a British citizen by birth automatically unless his parents were foreign diplomats. Since he's 32 he would have been born after 1 January 1983 when absolute jus soli citizenship was ended in the UK by the British Nationality Act 1981. After this date in order to be a British citizen by birth your mother (or father if born in wedlock) would need to be a British citizen or 'settled' in the UK, that is be considered a permanent resident under specified criteria.

Under the rules in force at the time means he would need to demonstrate that his mother, as a citizen of an EEC country, was exercising her Treaty rights in the UK at the time of his birth. If so then he would be a British citizen by birth under Section 1(1)(b) BNA 1981. Not a problem if his parents had bothered to apply for his British passport thirty years ago, more of a problem now.

The Home Office has made it clear it did not ask him to sit a Life in the UK Test exam or apply for residency so The Grauniad's headline is just more of the clickbait 'fake news' they supposedly rail against.

Hardly. Mr Wolf has been told exactly what he needs to provide. It's not HMPO's fault that he's taken 32 years to apply for his first British passport and no longer can obtain the correct paperwork. Shouting betrayal doesn't really wash when he's been quite happy to operate on his German passport until this point. He should be grateful that he has access to any passport - see this thread for someone who was born in the UK to British parents and is having the same problem.

ah207

Understood. Seems even the broadsheets (or "quality" papers as they used to be called in my time) are not immune to sensationalising stories.

BritInParis

The Times is probably the only UK broadsheet left that can be reasonably relied upon.

captainflack

The laws haven't changed, the issue is that hardly any EU citizens bothered to get UK citizenship, and many others never bothered to apply for permanent residency, because they simply didn't need to. An EU passport was pretty much the same in terms of being able to live, work, etc. - voting was probably the only thing most could not do, maybe apply for some defence related jobs too.

It's an issue now because of brexit; even those who've lived in the UK all their lives on EU passports now need UK citizenship to be sure they're not going to be kicked out or discriminated against regarding employment and so on, because it is unclear what if any rights they'll retain.

EMR

Immigrants from the commonwealth and non EU enter the UK under entirely different regulations.
They are either legal or not, ifillegal then they risk deportation..


Nothiig to do with your peculiar viewpoint.