Then issue them with EHICs and ask the Daily Mail to pay for a ticket to another European country of their choice.

Just not Malta

I agree with Jsmth. The UK doesn't seem very immigrant-of-any-kind friendly, including spouses of their own citizens ! (see spouse visa shambles)

Then, I shouldn't talk with Malta's track record.

Yes, that bolded bit is particularly despicable. But then not many outside of the tory government actually agree with it.

Aside from a minority of bigoted individuals I don't think the UK is especially "not friendly" to immigrants, more that the bigoted minority tend to be in the present government

I wouldn't say there is any bigotry going on, more a case of over-reaction in a highly populist fashion.

I dunno...maybe...but thinking about two bits of legislation in particular...and I'm doing this by memory for the first bit...

Back when Thatcher was PM there was some new restriction on immigration that had some exceptions that effectively meant non whites were the ones with the problems. That was pretty bigoted with no great call for such restictions from the voters.

More recently, as Gozit mentioned, was the rule introduced in 2012 whereby Brits returning to the UK with non EU spouses, who they may have been married to for donkeys years, had to meet needlessly high income conditions.

There was never any public desire for that restriction as there may have been for others that haven't been introduced.

Not aware of the first example.

The 'high' income rule is indeed a poorly constructed restriction. However, my guess is that it is nothing more than that, rather than being purposely discriminatory (in an ethic sense).

Indeed, but I was just addressing your point about populist over reaction. On that particular restriction there hadn't been any desire for restrictions to be introduced for the government to act upon, unlike the different situation of arranged marriages for example.

Well really Chaps, does one or does one not want to keep Johnnie Foreigner out of Blighty?

It's a question of degree.

Friends of mine fell foul of this- she couldn't get he work permit until he earned over a certain threshold. Looked brutal to me.

As we noted in the immigration discussion leading from Canadian officials to watch out for wedding/ honeymoon photos from Niagara Falls, the scammers are probably way more aware of these restrictions than normal civilians.

Yes, there have been quite a few stories in the press of completely legit couples/families being denied residency due to earnings requirements. Although I think Canada has a similar system?

As a % of total population in UK and Canada, they both let in the same amount of Immigrants as each other. I read the %'s somewhere once.

Not sure that includes EU folk, although i'd doubt it.

Therefore, the UK is no better or worse than Canada. Stop ****ing moaning you lot.

Although the sponsoring spouse cannot be in receipt of social assistance there's no minimum income condition for marrieds.
Not even if only married a short time.
Suspicion may be aroused as to whether genuine marriage of course, but our sponsorship application was in a few weeks after we married.

It's been 10 years, but the first marriage when we had to go through the whole process my ex was only making 14-15,000 per year and no issues at all. I was actually surprised how easy the whole process was, took forever but wasn't difficult in any way for us.