EU citizens in Great Britain: "We are five million guinea pigs"

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If you have the right one, you can stay: Prime Minister Boris Johnson with a British passport

Photo: picture alliance / Photoshot

Maike Bohn remembers the time when the people of Great Britain were Europeans, not long ago.

“Then came Brexit.

We became strangers overnight. ”With the end of British EU membership, the right to freedom of movement for European citizens in Great Britain also ended.

This has dramatic consequences for many.

Bohn is co-founder of the3million, an organization that campaigns for the rights of EU foreigners living in the UK.

A crucial deadline is approaching for them: EU foreigners still have just under two weeks to apply for a right of residence in Great Britain with the so-called EU settlement program.

For those who lived in the country before the end of 2020, this should grant framework conditions similar to those before Brexit - for example the right to work, live and use the health system.

However, anyone who does not register by July 1st without good reason will lose their right of residence - and fall under the "Hostile Environment" rules: a series of requirements that are intended to make it as difficult as possible for foreigners without a right to stay in the UK Life.

As of 2012, the ruling conservatives had taken measures to keep their promise of falling immigration.

The former Prime Minister Theresa May said at the time as Home Secretary: "The aim is to create a really hostile environment for illegal immigrants here in Great Britain." The think tank "UK in a Changing Europe" has now come to the conclusion that hundreds of thousands will be disregarded approaching deadline could run the risk of being deported.

Residence status: unclear

One problem with the requirements is that many of those who are now asked to register have lived in the UK for years or decades and have previously felt secure in their right of residence. "Suddenly we are people who have to prove something," says Bohn - proving how long they have been in the country, how big the stays outside of the country were during the period, how they relate to other applicants.

It is still not clear to some of those affected whether they will be illegally in the country from July 1st. For older people who moved to Great Britain before joining the EU on January 1, 1973, there is actually no need to register. But here, too, there are gaps and different certificates - and a misunderstanding can quickly turn into fatality. Bohn reports on an elderly couple who have neither a cell phone nor an e-mail address - but both are necessary for the application. Likewise, those affected who are socially or economically poorly integrated or not digitally well versed could fall through the cracks.

To make matters worse, the government is currently implementing its digital offensive - a key promise made by the Boris Johnson government.

The problem with this is that the technologies that the UK authorities are trying to future-proof are not working properly right now.

One in four reported to the3million that they could not see their own status;

one in five stated that they could not identify them when traveling or applying for a job.

"We are five million guinea pigs for the digitization of the administration," says Bohn.

Government with no overview

The British government lacks an overview of all of this - it was surprised by the 5.4 million applications for residence permits that were received after Brexit. It was based on around three million EU foreigners in the country - the name of the organization the3million goes back to this estimate. It is true that the applications that have now been recorded also contain duplications - other entitled persons have not yet submitted an application and could still be added. How many are unknown to the authorities. And the administration is already overwhelmed - more than 300,000 applications were recently waiting to be processed.

The uncertainty of those waiting is growing - in May, cases caused horror in which Europeans had to spend days in custody because their documents for entry to Great Britain were incorrect or incomplete - or because border guards supposedly misinterpreted their information.

Overall, the tone is tightening at British borders: From January to March alone, 3,294 EU citizens were turned away there - six times as many as in the first quarter of the previous year, according to the Home Office.

London alone shrank by 700,000 inhabitants

The sometimes tough approach of the authorities and the large - partly unjustified - uncertainty among parts of the EU citizens in Great Britain is fueled by the sharp rhetoric of domestic politics. Interior Minister Prity Patel, for example, the Prime Minister's Tory party colleague, had herself photographed personally supervising a deportation raid. And tabloids spread the fairy tale of an uncontrolled increase in immigration with negative repercussions for the British.

The fact is that since Brexit and during the corona crisis, a number of foreigners have left the country and service organizations, such as the national health service NHS, are struggling with staff shortages.

At the end of 2020, the UK was living almost a million fewer non-Kingdom born people than a year earlier.

And over the period of the pandemic, London alone shrank by 700,000 residents.

Bohn demands that the government should now at least act accommodatingly with the deadline of July 1 and also backdate the approval in good time for latecomers.

"Because whoever has received the stamp 'illegal' can still have problems with it for a long time, whether in the search for a job, in health care or when entering and leaving the country.

According to the Ministry of the Interior, 4.9 million of the 5.4 million applications have already been approved. Most of the other applicants will probably not have any problems either, "but if they do, it will hit the weaker ones," says Bohn.