EU applications for UK citizenship up 80% since Brexit please log in to view this image Image copyright PA Nearly 30,000 EU nationals applied to become British citizens in the 12 months after last summer's Brexit vote - almost double the number of the previous year. Home Office statistics show 28,502 such applications between July 2016 and June 2017, up 80% from 15,871 in 2015-16. The total number of applications, from all nationalities, fell by 8%. The rise comes as ONS figures showed a fall in net migration - partly due to a rise in EU nationals leaving the UK. Jonathan Portes, a professor at King's College London, said: "Historically, immigrants from outside the EU have been much more likely than EU migrants to apply for UK citizenship." But the uncertainty over EU citizens' rights in the UK after Brexit means "many EU citizens living here are seeking UK citizenship, at least as an insurance policy", he added. One of the most noticeable changes was among Germans, with applications almost tripling. Applications from nationals of eight eastern European countries which joined the EU in 2004 rose by 45% to 9,841 - Poland had the highest with 6,179. EU countries with most applications July 2016-June 2017 % increase from previous year 1. Poland 6,179 43.9% 2. Italy 2,950 166% 3. Romania 2,713 40% 4. France 2,508 168.5% 5. Germany 2,338 193.4% 6. Bulgaria 1,697 43.8% 7. Spain 1,381 170.8% 8. Portugal 1,260 115% 9. Hungary 1,210 53.7% 10. Greece 1,032 43.5% The Home Office report said increases in applications from EU nationals in recent years are "likely to reflect immigration in earlier years while the most recent rise may be partly due to the impact of rule changes and recent events". The rights of the three million EU citizens living in the UK following Brexit is one of the key issues in the UK government's negotiations with Brussels. While there has been a rise in applications from EU nationals, the number from the rest of the world has fallen by 18% in the last 12 months - from 131,266 to 107,410. Meanwhile, ONS figures released on Thursday showed net migration - the difference between those entering and leaving the UK - fell 81,000 to 246,000 in the year to March 2017. That was partly because the number of EU citizens who decided to leave the UK increased by 33,000 year-on-year to 122,000 - the highest departure number for nearly a decade. please log in to view this image Marianne's story: 'Saddened it was necessary' please log in to view this image Image copyright Marianne Kaufmann Marianne Kaufmann, an EU national with dual French and German citizenship, has lived in the UK for 24 years and recently became a British citizen. "Had it not been for the fact that my (unmarried) partner is British, and that our daughter, too, is British, I would have liked to leave the UK after the referendum," she said. "I felt unwelcome and unwanted. "As it was, I felt forced to apply for British citizenship, which was tedious, lengthy and difficult, as well as an expensive process. "Due to my partner's work there is the possibility that we may need to move abroad for several years, and I was worried that I would lose my permanent residency status. "Last week I became a British citizen, while keeping my French and German nationality. "While I am relieved and pleased that my application was successful and proud that I am now a British citizen, I am saddened that it was necessary for me to apply in the first place." please log in to view this image Applying for British citizenship An application costs £1,282 Applicants must fulfil certain requirements, such as having lived in the UK for at least five years Successful applicants are invited to a citizenship ceremony where they make an oath of allegiance and a pledge to respect the rights, freedoms and laws of the UK.
Clearly Merkel's disastrous decision to suspend the rule that refugees need to claim asylum in the first country they arrive in, to prevent potential carnage in Greece, the Balkans, Hungary etc and let people into Germany, mostly from Syria where over half a million have been killed in years of civil war, has damaged her hugely. Which is probably why she has a 15 point lead over her nearest rival in the run up to the German elections. I hope she hasn't been taking advice from Theresa May...... It was a great humanitarian act in the face of a genuine crisis. Of course it will create problems in Germany, that's the price of being humane. The British have done this too, traditionally taking refugees from everywhere, until relatively recently, albeit not on this scale. Taking in 27,000 Ugandan Asians when Idi Amin kicked them out was the right thing to do (although as they were British citizens Ted Heath would have struggled to find a reason to keep them out, even though his government tried to find an island somewhere to send them to) and even though there was plenty of rather unpleasant opposition at the time. It's only since Enoch Powell's 'rivers of blood' speech that taking refugees has been a political issue for us. Hugenots (over 100,000, David Cameron's definition of a 'swarm' I'm told) Dutch protestants, Karl Marx, Basques during the Spanish civil wars, German Jews, people from multiple Nazi occupied countries, Hungarians after 1956, Albanian Kosovans.....we had a great tradition of generosity towards the unfortunate stranger.
Yes it is mate, though I didn't realise it until I looked up yesterday, thinking 'that was a really good thing for us to do, I wonder how it happened'. Bit of a nasty surprise. They were thinking of the Solomon Islands. The Falklands actually volunteered to take some but was thought 'unsuitable'. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2619049.stm Meanwhile Boris Johnson has said that Assad, a man who has overseen the destruction of his own country, with 500,000 deaths, millions fleeing and proven chemical attacks on civilians, should be allowed to stand for election if he wants if this carnage ever ends. Funny that, I thought usually genocidal tyrants were imprisoned. Silly me.
Merkel hasn't admitted mistakes re her open border policy - time will be the test whether that was rash or not - but she has expressed regret at the chaotic way it was handled, the lack of control and checks on those coming in. Extract from the Guardian Sept 2016: Angela Merkel admits mistakes over asylum seekers after disastrous election German chancellor takes responsibility for poor Berlin poll result in wake of last year’s chaotic scenes at borders and train stations please log in to view this image Angela Merkel has taken responsibility for her party’s disastrous showing in Sunday’s Berlin state election, admitting mistakes in her handling of last year’s refugee crisis. In an unusually self-critical but also combative speech, the German chancellor said on Monday afternoon she was fighting to make sure there would be no repetition of last year’s chaotic scenes on Germany’s borders, when “for some time, we didn’t have enough control”. “No one wants a repeat of last year’s situation, including me,” Merkel said. However, she did not distance herself from her decision last September to keep open Germany’s borders to thousands of refugees stranded at Keleti station in Budapest. The mistake, the chancellor said, was that she and her government had not been quicker to prepare for the mass movement of people triggered by conflicts in the Middle East. “If I was able to, I would turn back time by many, many years, so that I could have prepared the whole government and the authorities for the situation which hit us out of the blue in the late summer of 2015,” she said.
An attitude that does you credit. Shouldn't your time be best spent on cleaning your parafonalia ? Duke and Trump are mighty proud
What Merkel has done is infinitely more dangerous than the Brits taking in Huguenots, anti-Franco Spaniards and Jews. There were no suicide bombers amongst the Hugenots, the Jews had no plans to cut the throats of infidels, there were no rogue rabbis trying to indoctrinate followers and start a holy war.
So she doesn't regret letting them in, she regrets not being efficient about the way they were let in. Given the amount of time (none) they had to prepare I think she's being hard on herself.
Yep, that is the risk she had to take to provide shelter and safety for the vast majority of genuine refugees with no intention of killing anyone. It's a very difficult situation to manage, both in terms of security and culture. The Germans will live with these things for decades, it would be foolish to pretend that it's all going to be cakes and ale. But they took a bold decision in the face of a crisis. And the fact is there have been no terrorist caused deaths in Germany this year, and 33 in the two preceding years. We have had more, tragically, this year alone, having taken 5000 Syrian refugees so far. Germany is vetting these migrants, 160,000 of them have been refused asylum so far. But they do face a big problem in actually deporting them. PS we did let a variety of European and Russian anarchists in during the late C19th, who were interested in blowing things up. But they were so inept only one death resulted, when one of them blew himself up at Greenwich Observatory, for some reason. The basis of Joseph Conrad's brilliant The Secret Agent. Conrad, in my view one of the greatest writers in the English language, was of course a Polish immigrant.
Politiciens all over The world should note The above equals Strong and Stable. Not the **** we're normally served up.
I don't think a death count by nation by year proves a lot to be honest. Terrorists wait until a nation is lulled into a false sense of security before they strike. I suspect those being vetted in Germany are benign, economic migrants that may not fulfill the requirements of "refugee". Any jihadists will be underground, figuratively speaking, and already operating in networks throughout Europe. Yes, there have been occasional problems with immigrant terror in the past, but few and far between. The Latvians in the Siege of Sydney Street stand out. Joseph Conrad was indeed a great writer. I enjoyed studying The Rover at O level, and re-read The Heart of Darkness quite recently.
This is an interesting one for me. For me its how it all began and how it escalated so fast. I don't blame Assad for this whole mess as it was our backing of the rebels which has caused this whole mess in the first place. Prior to the civil war starting, Syria didn't seem like a murderous dictatorship which we saw all over the news ala kim jong un or saddam hussein. Only ever since the civil war happened has this "reign of tyranny" and stuff all come about. He seemed to be ruling okay and all the different ethnic groups seemed to be fine until everything suddenly escalated (i personally believe it was all geopolitics). As for the people dying in war, its always a travesty that so many innocents die and suffer but unforunately conventional warfare where theres side that is at a far superior advantage is going to see a big death count and lots of innocent civilians die whether its from the assad side or the rebel side or the ISIS side. Hell our drones/bombs and far superior technology kill lots of innocents itself let alone and our morally superior troops commit plenty of war crimes let alone the riffraff forces that these two sides have Even if Assad hasn't been fighting back (i dont know who i believe on chemical weapons etc as the western media only want to portray assad as the violator), Syria would be plunged into a state of civil unrest ala Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya so either way there was going to be a massive death count and displacement regardless of what he was going to do.
At last a bit of Brexit clarity from Labour, with Starmer saying that, under Labour, we would stay in the Single Market and Customs Union for a transitional period, which would be 'as short as possible, but as long as necessary'. Effectively permanently, then. Good.
