Ulsterman in Texas

I opposed the Belfast Agreement until the amended version was agreed at St Andrews in 2005, but that's by the by, I don't know enough about the issue to tell you the answer as it seems to be a more immigration related. Maybe if your spouse holds only a British passport they only consider him British? has he talked to the Irish embassy/Consulate? I don't know about your personal circumstances so I can't really comment.

Pulaski

Wouldn't the same "disadvantage" be experienced by other dual-nationals (where both nationalities are within the European Onion)? British-German, British-Dutch, etc.

SultanOfSwing

The Belfast agreement was a load of shite. If you're born on British soil, you're ****ing British, end of.

rebeccajo

Except the British government specifically tells people born in Northern Ireland they can consider themselves to be either.

Pulaski

Same as they do to any other dual national (British and ______ ), but the bottom line is that so far as the British government is concerned, you're still British.

rebeccajo

I don't think it matters (legally) whether a citizen personally supports something a country agrees to. I think what matters (legally) is the agreement.

It doesn't matter which passport someone in the North holds.

The Irish/Embassy consulate is irrelevant. It's a UK issue.

Yes, it's an immigration matter - but that isn't what I am asking you. I am asking what you think of the scenario. What you think of an agreement being made and then being broken.

I only raise the issue as it relates to Scotland and not to the specifics of people born in Northern Ireland. I raise it because it is possibly an example of Westminster not playing it straight with people, and how they tire of this.

rebeccajo

But........the government said they would recognize your Irishness........

It's not the same as other dual nationals.

Pulaski

Well they're clearly behaving as if it is! QED

rebeccajo

If you are saying the government is behaving as if people from NI are the same as other dual nationals, then yes they are.

Nutek

Doesn't this describe just about every government ever? Do you think that an independent Scottish government would be any different? I don't.

(Personally I couldn't really care less what Scotland do/don't do, but the idea of a government behaving "honestly" seems laughable.).

Speedwell

As a US citizen wife with a Northern Irish husband who holds both passports and cares less than nothing about sectarianism except to curse it, I'm just grateful that he has the same chance as other UK citizens to bring a US spouse into the UK, and the same chance as other Irish citizens to bring a US spouse into Ireland. The real injustice is not that the UK won't let him bring me in as Irish, it's that they will let EU citizens bring in non-EU spouses preferentially and they make it very difficult for their own citizens to bring in theirs.

Pulaski

But you want the British government to pretend that one of their own citizens isn't British. Unless you go through a formal revocation of your citizenship, I don't think the government of any country would be prepared to treat their own citizen as a foreigner.

Certainly if I went to live in the UK, I would (expect to) be treated as as a British citizen in all respects despite the fact I have US citizenship too. The more I think about it, and I have read your posts going back several months, the more I think that you're expecting the British government to extend preferable treatment to NI dual British-Irish nationals than other British European dual nationals, because if your husband was British-German he wouldn't be able to bring his US wife into the country in the manner you describe either. Granted, if he was British-German he could apparently use the Surinder Singh route to bring you into the UK via the Irish Republic, but then he could, as an British-Irish dual citizen, bring you into the UK via Germany.

Speedwell

Pulaski, listen. We explored Surinder Singh and found it wasn't appropriate for our case. We are not willing for him to game the system by renouncing his British citizenship. We aren't looking for special treatment for him as an Irish citizen or me as a US citizen. We are simply fed up that the UK makes it harder for UK citizens to bring in non-EU spouses than they make it for EU citizens to bring in non-EU spouses.

Pulaski

But he wouldn't need to surrender his citizenship to SS you in via any country in Europe, you're trying to pull an abbreviated SS (straight to the UK) which doesn't work for any British citizen.

Personally I think the rules suck too, but the inconsistencies have been forced on the UK by the European Onion, I don't see it as the British government's fault.

scrubbedexpat099

SOP