A young lad from my hometown of Hull went on holiday to Latvia a couple of years ago, and met a young Latvian lady. They fell in love and have been conducting a long distance relationship ever since. Back and forth to see each other, and now they have decided that they want to make a life together in Hull. What could possibly stand in their way?
Well, quite a lot in fact. Since we left Europe – something I was wholly in favour of – Latvians, amongst other Europeans, can no longer settle here, as free movement within geographical Europe has ended. The requirements for the young Latvian lady to come and join her boyfriend in Hull are quite stringent and include a minimum income of £29,000, proof of adequate accommodation when in the UK, and a basic level of English.
Frankly, I am not opposed to the above requirements. A restriction – not an end – to immigration, and a level of control over who is entering our country were amongst the main reasons I voted for Brexit. I’m a Little Englander you say? Well, first, I am Scottish and, second, I have a Russian son-in-law who is a welcome addition to the family. So out-virtue-signal me on that if you can.
Now, let me introduce you to more of my family. A section of my mother’s family long ago moved to Australia. I have been green with envy since my first visit to see them there over twenty years ago. I went back and forth regularly until the Covid era, and they have been here to visit us since the madness ended.
Next to visit is one of my cousins with her daughter later this year. My cousin’s parents – my aunt and uncle who emigrated to Australia – were British, and my cousin and her siblings, therefore, have dual Australian-British citizenship. Therefore, my cousin is both Australian and British. However, she had allowed her British passport to expire and, with the forthcoming visit in mind, thought she could use her Australian passport instead. Simple. Or so you would think.
Aussies who hold an Australian passport can enter the United Kingdom freely, provided they have an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), which is what we require to enter Australia on a British passport. But this only applies to Aussies who are not dual citizens. Dual Australian-British citizens are not permitted to enter on their Australian passport. You may want to read the last sentence again so that it is clear in your mind…’ Dual Australian-British citizens are not permitted to enter on their Australian passport.’
The regulation is not new; in fact, it has been in place since 1981 under the British Nationality Act. British citizens are supposed to enter the United Kingdom as British citizens because, as such, they have an unlimited right to stay. It is not illegal for dual Australian-British citizens to enter the UK as a dual citizen using a non-British passport, but you cannot be admitted as such and may be held up until you can prove your British citizenship. That is best done using your British passport – unless it has expired.
Australia, despite having the Union Flag in the corner of its flag, sharing our sovereign and only formally severing constitutional ties with us in 1986, is not a CTA (common travel area). While the regulation has been in place since 1981, it had no effect until recently and when I watched some of the YouTube explanations, I honestly thought they were spoofs. So why the change at this time?
Whereas, at one time you spoke to an immigration officer at a desk and explained your situation, for example, the case of my cousin whose passport had expired and they smiled and let you in (after all you are not breaking the law), it seems you cannot explain this to a scanner. The chances of the scanner knowing you are a dual citizen are slim unless you entered recently – and scanned – using a UK passport and it matched the biometrics. The scanner cannot, nevertheless, reconcile the fact that you are a British citizen with the fact, even as a dual national, you are entering using another passport.
One route open to my cousin and other Aussies in the same spot is to renounce British citizenship at the bargain price of over AUS$900. Given my cousin has waited eight months for her new British passport, I imagine she was tempted.
Now, if you are still awake – and I know it’s hard – the point!
Relevant to both the case of the young man in Hull and to my cousin from Australia, is that this is all simply organised buffoonery. It is designed to embugger life for law-abiding citizens who, by virtue of the fact that they become enmeshed in all these bureaucratic bollocks, prove their law-abiding nature. Meantime, the blindest of eyes is turned towards the illegal immigrants among us.
Here in Hull, we have a large and mixed migrant community. There are hard-working Eastern Europeans who lead respectable lives, go to church and make a genuine contribution. These are mainly Poles and Russians who have had to meet our entry requirements. However, there are other Eastern Europeans here who cannot possibly have met the salary requirements for settling.
The womenfolk do not seem to be able to afford clothes as they are often to be seen in Tesco in the afternoons in slippers and dressing gowns. The same community is highly peripatetic, leading to problems for local schools (I am a governor) as they leave without warning taking their children with them, leaving the schools to search for missing pupils, which they have a duty to do. I believe these people are Romanian.
Then, of course, we have the hordes of priapic Muhammadans storming our beaches daily, being welcomed with open arms, helping themselves without permission to our young ladies, being housed, fed and beating the queues in GP surgeries. There seem to be no salary or accommodation requirements or regulations for them settling here. And they have solved the problem of having to scan their passports by chucking them into the sea. They arrive claiming they are fleeing a warzone (Calais), make up a nationality most likely to make that believable, and then say they are twelve years old.
The only advice I can give the young lad with the Latvian girlfriend is to buy her a dinghy, get her to Calais and tell her to flee war-torn France as fast as she can row across the channel. Had my cousin’s British passport not arrived I might have given her the same advice. On the other hand, she may have chosen to stay in Australia. And who could have blamed her?
Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.
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The first paragraph sums up the sheer insanity…
Apologies…the second paragraph…