My brother in law who lives in New Zealand with his wife, emailed me recently to say that they had now got their UK passports as it will be impossible to gain entry to the UK after this Feb 25 without one. (He used to use his NZ passport.) The same appears to apply to me and my wife. We live in Canada and normally use our Canadian passports to travel to the UK. As of February 25 all visitors to the UK will require an Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA), but if you are a UK citizen, specifically including dual nationality persons like me, then your application for an ETA will be denied. Itâs a case of have a UK passport or you canât come. I was so surprised by this that I checked on the UKGov website and it is quite explicit. So I called the UK embassy in Ottawa. Eventually I got to speak to a woman who told me, very politely, that I canât visit the UK in future unless I have a UK passport as well as my Canadian one!
There must be plenty of of expat brits on this forum. Are others aware of this?
I renewed my UK passport last year from New Zealand, as it had expired, before this all came to light. The renewal was straight forward, but now there are big delays as loads of people are getting caught out.
Itâs all part of the modern trend to increase bureaucracy and inefficiency and to generally make life more difficult for those just wanting to get on with life.
I understand that the Border have the ability to wave someone through in simular situations but no one will be because the Home Office have instructed airlines that no one can travel.
Fancy being a citizen and not being allowed into your own country.
is the issue the cost of certificate of entitlement attached to your non British passport? Or the fact this was not known about until very recentky, and so there is now a rush to secure a certificate or a UK passport before the UK border controls are upgraded! Or both?
Certainly within the UK, there has been incessant news about how the border controls are being strengthened in a general sense⌠but even living in the UK I was only aware of this change a few months ago.. as some of my extended family hold dual citizenship.
Iâm not sure all the scenarios have been thought through. Comms has been particularly woeful mind and I suspect the funding/increase revenues to play a large part. I think this area is targeted for a 150% return against cost and theyâre actually over achieving.
I certainly dont think itâs some sort of a revenue generating thing, far from it⌠I think itâs more a reflection on how chaotic or ineffective the border controls have historically been and they are now tightening them up using modern technology. Perhaps too much happened by trust on loose records previously, and those days are now over. I feel itâs the right thing to do .. but it appears the comms have been poor.
Iâve just ran into the same thing. Well, not me, our daughter. Being half British sheâs a national, but has never lived there and has never had a British passport. Nor is she able to renounce her nationality for another 11 years.
Apparently she will not be allowed to travel to the UK until she gets a British passport, which can take up to 24 (!!) weeks during which theyâll hold her other passport as well. Not being able to travel at all for that period is of course a bit of an issue. I think technically also her ETA will be invalidated next week (I guess no hope for reimbursement). Apparently sheâs too British for an ETA, but not British enough to actually be allowed to enter the country. And while I paid 10-15GBP for my (and her) ETA, she will have to pay 120+ GBP for the privilege of being a national⌠The whole thing feels like a bad joke.
I find the whole thing absolutely ridiculous. Iâm sure the intent was good, but someone didnât properly think this one through, especially regarding children. Nor did they communicate this change in any meaningful way, at least not to the people it was most likely to affect, those living abroad. We were even in the UK last week, youâd think someone could have mentioned or at least put a poster up at customs?
But neither did people in the UK seem to be aware, we only found out because one of the grandparents (people with a vested interest) forwarded an article from the times.
Ah, so if you are a British national but have never had a passport you canât arrive in the UK? I hadnât realised that, I thought it was only for British passport holders that have lapsed their British passport and still held their dual nationality one.
Correct. If you are a British national you canât arrive in the UK without a British passport, whether youâve ever had one or not. It doesnât matter where you were born, if youâve ever lived there, paid tax etc. Simply being a national requires you to have a British passport to be allowed entry.
Problem is that you canât always choose. My daughter hasnât chosen to be a British national (or to have dual nationality). Nor does the UK allow her to give it up.
âOn display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.â
âThatâs the display department.â
âWith a flashlight.â
âAh, well, the lights had probably gone.â
âSo had the stairs.â
âBut look, you found the notice, didnât you?â
âYes,â said Arthur, âyes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying âBeware of the Leopard.â
Iâm not sure you need to give over your other nationalitiesâ passport to request renew the uk one. Iâve never had to, neither have I been asked to for my childâs. They do, however, request a photocopy of all pages including the covers of the other countryâs passport. So you can travel.
This happened to me as I had to go to the US on short notice and my UK passport was in the process of renewal, so I travelled on my French passport - it did have a fast turn around and I had both documents in the end. Receiving the uk one a coupe of days before travelling.
Iâve had a good experience and pretty fast turnaround when renewing the UK passport with everything being done online, even taking the photo myself.
I donât really understand the process. How was your daughter registered as a British national?
Did you do it?
My daughter, Irish, is married to a Belgian in Brussels but I wouldnât expect her daughters to be Irish nationals. I donât even know if she wanted them to be whether it could be done. But Iâd fully expect them to be able to get an Irish passport if they wanted to. But then again what I think makes sense may not be relevant to procedures.
The certificate of entitlement requires an apparently more onerous and lengthy process to be gone through, and costs nearly ÂŁ600 per person, so a passport application is the route of least resistance. There may have been something in the news here, but it completely bi-passed me.
It does seem as though the governments, airlines and airport authorities are all going out of their way to make travel as throughly unpleasant as possible. What next I wonder?
Not quite I understand you can apply for a certificate of entitlement on your non British passport. Though itâs costs around ÂŁ600 I think, which seems quite a lot.