This Kafkaesque nightmare is damaging Brexit
Somewhere, deep inside the bowels of the Home Office, there is a computer saying “no”. At least, I hope that is what explains the stream of sinister letters the department has been sending out to EU citizens, many of whom have lived here legally for decades, casually informing them that they have no right to be in Britain and had better “make preparations” to leave.
The stories keep popping up – a Dutch mother, a German professor, the French wife of a UCL scientist. It doesn’t matter whether they’ve been here legally for 10 years or 50, whether they’re married to a British citizen, what productive and valuable work they’re doing or even whether they have young British children dependent on them. People who fit all of these descriptions have applied for permanent residence since last June and been told “no” by a computer.
But why? The answer seems to lie buried in the small print of the 85-page application form they are required to fill in when applying for permanent residence. The form is so complicated it has 40 pages of additional “guidance notes” to assist applicants or, as the Home Office calls them, “customers”, in filling it out. It takes the Government six months to assess and if a “customer” has put a foot wrong, they receive a deportation letter.
It is, though, very easy to go wrong. I’ve been told of one applicant who has been asked to provide supporting evidence for every single trip he’s ever taken in and out of the UK for the past 13 years. Others have fallen into a Kafkaesque loophole in what’s known as the “self-sufficiency” rule, under which they must prove they have always had an additional means of paying for their healthcare, like an EU insurance card, even when they have been legally treated on the NHS for years.
The Government’s response, when asked about this crazy state of affairs, is to direct inquirers to a technical fact sheet. It states that for people who have lived here more than five years, there is “no requirement to register for documentation certifying permanent residence”. And yet, simultaneously, the department is sending out letters to parents of British children telling them to pack their bags and be off.
The Home Office’s latest idea is to tell European citizens they simply shouldn’t bother applying for residency and should instead sign up to an email list and wait for updates. No doubt, we’re all very keen to know what happens next in this sloppy, bureaucratic nightmare.
I am certain that none of the worried recipients of these letters will be deported. But what signal does it send, at a time when Britain needs to look welcoming and attractive, that our immigration system is sending out insulting letters to the country’s most established migrants?
Most Brexiteers know instinctively that our vote to leave the EU was not a vote to become a mean, insular, little island. But Europeans living here, many of whom were totally blindsided by Brexit, don’t necessarily understand that. Most, in my experience, were inclined to think the worst and are only now starting to hope for the best. Until, that is, they received a formal eviction notice from the Home Office.
At its most benign, this is a case of total incompetence. The Government might not be able to provide certainty for all EU citizens right away and might want to hold back on legislation, but it wouldn’t be hard to pause a system that is delivering such obviously malign results. Amber Rudd has had months to get a grip of this situation. If she can’t even cope with the Home Office’s rogue computers, how on earth is Britain going to get a whole new immigration system up and running in the next two years?
Lord Hill, Britain’s top Eurocrat, was naturally a committed European and Remainer. He has good advice for his fellow travellers. “There’s no point refighting the referendum,” he told a conference of business leaders, academics and politicians in London yesterday. Instead, he said, everyone needs to start planning for Brexit, whichever way they voted. He’s quite right, of course. If even a man who went native in Brussels at the peak of his career can see this reality, why can’t the country’s other stubborn Remainers?
It doesn’t take a military expert to understand the problem with Jeremy Corbyn’s approach to our nuclear capability. Shopping for a birthday present in Selfridges, I overheard one shop worker explaining to his colleagues: “You can’t have no nukes though. I mean, if they launch, and we ain’t got nothing to launch back, it doesn’t work.” His colleague responded: “If they launch, it’s all over.” To which he replied: “That’s the point of a deterrent. It stops anyone launching.” The man is wasted in retail. He ought to be given an advisory post in the Labour Party immediately.
Most Brexiteers know that our vote to leave was not a vote to become a mean, insular, little island