British Citizenship fees - why in the name of sanity.....

[Lottapianos]

.... do I have to pay EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIFTY POUNDS to have a form processed?

Sorry for shouting but it drives me around the bend. I'm happy to pay a fee but Christ on a bendy bus! They say it's to cover the administration costs and the cost of the citizenship ceremony you get invited to if/when your application gets approved. I can only imagine it must be an Elton-John-style White Tie and Diamonds Ball if that's how much they are charging!

Anyone shed light on why it's so bloody expensive? Is there a good reason or are they just taking the you-know-what? Thanks!

And funnily enough, although I was born and brought up here, 3 of my grandparents were not - and in fact one of my parents! Yet there are people with 4 British grandparents who aren't British now because they their parents were born abroad. So there you go - we're all much of a muchness, lots of people move around the world.

My parents were both immigrants. i have no genetic link as such to the land of my birth (not that in my country we share anything like a commmon ethnicity).

and yet, i felt wholly belonging to that land, its history and culture mine, and no one ever suggested that it might be any other way.

i sometimes wonder if my ethnically half english, born-on-british-soil children will be able to say the same. i am sure there will be people who will be only too happy to tell them that my contaminating genes means they will never be entirely british.

The whole idea of a 'genetic link' is very odd though - there are parts of Newcastle where the genetic code is the same as the Viking invaders - ie., Scandinavian.

I do not believe anyone can feel a closeness to the land they live in that's based on their genes.

No-one can tell me I should feel more British than DH because of my ancestry.

If anyone said that chibi unless they were celts or something like that, they'd be total hypocrites. There's no genetic purity in Britain - even people who've been here centuries have very mixed up genes, lots of romans, vikings, normans etc in the mix!

OP
Have not read whole of thread but am in same situation

do you have ILR in an old passport?
"indefinite" means exactly that
so long as you do not get a criminal conviction to breach its rules
the sweeties at immigration HAVE to accept it - even in an out of date passport
I carry the one with the ILR (expiry 2004) and the one with my marriage certificates (two surnames adds to the fun) and a copy of my "life in theUK" pass cert (no time limit)

Until the UK realises that allowing permanent residents to regularise is to ITS benefit, we will continue to play the game

PS
I have NI number at 16
NHS number
pay tax
married to a brit
english kids
etc etc

I think that when people talk about helping to build Britain, they mean the war effort, being conscripted into the army, children being evacuated, bombed out of houses, etc. (as well as previous wars).

Also generally being ripped off with the major changes after the war, in regards to property etc.

Just to explain.

It's true. If you have ILR you don't have to do anything again. I carried my expired and current foreign passports for years as my visa was in the old one and they wanted £230 just to stamp my new one. I was told (by them!) that I could just carry the old one so I did. I only went the citizen route because I'm a political junkie and wanted to vote. "No taxation without representation" and all that crap... :)

Oh, well, darn, I didn't help to build britain. What with being born after 1945. Damn, that must put me in the minority of Brits today, right?

Well then birdgottafly, if that's criteria we should slam the door shut to Germans and Austrians (who have no restrictions on entry of course) and welcome Americans and Russians with open arms!!! Slightly bonkers argument if you ask me.

It's not quite true with ILR if you leave the country. Then you can lose it after two years out of the country. It's the reason why we raced to get my dh citizenship as I got a job offer overseas and coulnd't face going through the whole immigration process again when we come back.

Also absolute nightmare if you lose your passport with the ILR stamp. In addition to the cost of a new passport of your own country, the border agency have you over a barrel (again) and charge you about £250 for a new stamp AND keep your passport for up to 6 months. Been there, done that.

elaine - excellent! DH says his granddad was flying Russian spy planes in WWII while my granddads were doing radar and my granny was working on Enigma code ... clearly my only claim to being British is my Russian pilot step-granddad.

Elaine
link to the 2 year limit on ILR please?
I'm UK based so not an issue for me BUT by golly I'd call in the grosvenor Square marines if UKBA stopped me getting back to my mum, husband and kids in the UK

PS
Keep ALL old passports with ILR in - I have 6 and if I got to immigration without one I'd PAY a courier to get to the right part of my house and bring it up.

I've spent a day locked up by immigration so had plenty of time to think strategy!

Elaine- if you speak to alot of older people they still hate the germans etc.

I am from SA immigrants and oddly enough these are mostly accectable, yet my first DM's husband, from the Caribbean, whose family are of course black, were not and are still not even though they are now fourth generation and came here to work in the NHS and merchant navy.

Well, that's ok then, as long as you're old it's fine to be racist ... or, erm, not?

I'm sure birdsgottafly.

BUt you do realise that Germans have no restrictions on entry to the UK? I don't think the contributions to the second world war guides our immigration policy.

Birds / Elaine
whereas my generation were influenced by the Barclays boycott and THAT spitting Image song (you know what I mean)

as a first generation economic migrant my sole comment to the xenophobes is
get off your arse and work harder than the Poles
as somebody who inherently believes in looking after those who need, I am more and more coming to accept that the welfare state has 'normalised' laziness in the endemic population (who can get benefits)
here in Southampton we have HUGE numbers of Poles - and bugger all of them claiming anything from the state - they have pride. Respect to them for that.

I found the genetic link idea very odd too. This is the land my DH was born in, where his parents, grandparents, on both sides are from as far back as they know. He is therefore as English as you can get by blood.

Will people like remains see him as English? He doesn't himself. He doesnt see it as erasing his ethnicity and cultural history either. He views himself as a NZ pakeha despite being all English by blood. By the way, not many official forms here recognise kiwis as an ethnic group. One of the NHS midwives gave us a lecture saying there is no such thing as a NZ white when I was pregnant with DD. According to her, whites are European even if you have never set foot in Europe.

I don't think that attacks on anyone is the answer. UK residents get caught up in poverty traps that are not easy to get out of.

"Those Poles" will be entitled to benefits after working for a while and if needed will claim them, as i have known plenty to do.

The UK welfare state has developed for a very good reason, but to understand that needs a knowledge of social policy, it is when getting rid of it, is suggested, by those not born in the UK, is when anger is promoted.

Especially if it spawns the disgusting remark,s such as those iamme43, came out with.

Elaine-i am not speaking about my own attitude, i am from a multi ethnic back ground and work with in social care and welfare rights, so know the "system" backwards. I am quoting the responses when i have challanged racism when i encounter it.

There are some really interesting pieces of research on racist thoughts, including them being able to be removed by the use of medications etc.

Whenever anyone says that the polish shouldn't be here, i often bring Marie Curie into the conversation.

Marie Curie did most of her work in France, birds.

But Marie Curie was a Pole. Some people claim you can never change your allegiance because it's embedded in your blood.

She may have done, but look at what a "Pole" has managed to achieve for the terminally ill and their families, in this country, because of the allowance of the movement of people around Europe and the world.

I try to point out that most hospital doctors are not from the UK, or footballers, also. Just tobreak down this accepted/non accepted view of immigration, depending on what suits.

If it were true you can't change allegiance, she'd have been Russian, not Polish, since Poland was Russian-controlled then. She certainly had bugger all to do with Britain!

It's about putting it in a way that doesn't seem patronising, or without going back to pre-unified Europe.