It did not come about voluntarily, but is the result of pressure from a sector of the press. But the British Government has shown its friendly side to citizens of EU countries who lived in the country before Brexit, and will consider appeals to stay permanently (and be able to work) from those who ignorantly did not apply within the deadlines. established deadlines.
The decision of the Ministry of the Interior responds to the publicity of cases such as that of a 34-year-old woman from Malaga who on December 26, after spending Christmas in Spain, was detained at Luton airport and put on a return plane because she lacked the settled status, the equivalent of a lifetime residence permit that, within the Brexit agreements, London granted to citizens of EU countries who had been here for at least five years and completed the relevant procedures before June 2021.
Almost six million Europeans (among them 376,370 Spaniards) obtained settled status through an easy online procedure, but, since bureaucracy is bureaucracy, there were more complex cases, such as those of those who had not been in Great Britain for five consecutive years, but parties in two or more periods (such as Malaga, which experienced the pandemic in South Africa), or those of those who, given that they already had permanent residence, thought that they had the papers in order without needing to adapt them to the Brexit agreements with the European Union.
Until last August, Interior had plenty of leeway, but in the summer it adopted a stricter position and did not give the benefit of the doubt to anyone, which translated into aberrations such as the cancellation of bank accounts by Santander of a Italian restaurant businessman who had been living and paying taxes in the United Kingdom for twenty-one years, but had not applied for settled status thinking that he did not need it. It is, on another scale, like the Jamaicans and natives of Caribbean countries who emigrated in the sixties and seventies without the need for papers, as citizens of the Commonwealth, and over time have been deported for lacking a British passport and being technically “illegal”.
After a campaign led by the pro-European newspaper The Guardian, publicizing the cases of the Italian and the Spanish, the Government has backed down and announced that it will consider the appeals of those who, having a residence permit prior to Brexit, did not apply within the deadline. for settled status. It is not an automatic concession, but each one must explain the circumstances of their situation.
Tourists from the EU can access the United Kingdom, in the vast majority of cases, simply with the electronic passport, without having to speak to any customs agent. But sometimes the system does not work, and if the interested party says that he lives or comes to work in the United Kingdom without having settled status, problems can arise. Last year, the border police prevented the entry of around five thousand Europeans, most of them Romanians, Bulgarians and Poles. Britons with second homes in the EU complain that they cannot stay more than six months without a visa.
