Citizenship test left Fife doctor feeling ‘incensed’

East Germany-born consultant slams ‘laughable’ process

A consultant psychiatrist who has lived and worked in Scotland for 25 years has branded the British citizenship test “dehumanising”.

East Germany-born Claudia Grimmer, who is married to a Scot and has three children, applied for citizenship fearing that the UK’s exit from Europe might see her asked to leave.

But she said the process involved was complex, frustrating and laughable and made her feel under suspicion.

She had to sit a language test to prove she could speak English and hand over her Fitbit watch and glasses to prove she had no technology which could be used to cheat.

Her two older children, who have German passports but applied for British passports, were asked in their tests what their house was built of and where the local swimming pool was.

Dr Grimmer, a child and adolescent psychiatrist for NHS Fife, said: “When I read what I had to do for the citizenship test I was incensed.

“I had to go for a language test. My job here is language-based, I sat psychiatry exams here.

“It felt ridiculous. I didn’t want to spend an afternoon and £150 sitting a language test.”

She was also told not to speak her native language to a fellow German who had just sat a language test, making her feel under suspicion.

In an interview with The Herald, she said: “It was like being searched at the airport; you haven’t done anything but you feel like you are not to be trusted and you have to prove yourself.”

Dr Grimmer arrived in Scotland in 1992 after celebrating the collapse of the Berlin Wall and met her husband Angus Macrae while working in Stornoway.

Although she had felt completely integrated, she said she was angry at not being able to vote in the referendum and the Brexit result left her “quite paralysed”.

She applied for citizenship concerned about her rights once Britain formally leaves the EU.

She said: “I feel in the end they will say ‘yes, people who have been here for a certain number of years can stay’, but it will be grudgingly and out of a need for people, not because they welcome you and value you.

“And even if they do say it, the damage will be done.”

Picture: Michael Boyd. Claudia Grimmer has lived in Scotland for 25 years with her Scots-born husband Angus and three children but is concerned about her rights post-Brexit.