To be worried about my indefinite leave to remain. Should I get British citizenship?

[Milliemoons]

I know it hasn’t happened yet and may not happen. But I’m worried about the security of my indefinite leave to remain. Anyone else out there? Or am I worried about nothing? I understand that legally they cannot really do much to jeopardise the status of people who have acquired legal settled status already but I’m worried more about pressure and complications should anything change.

I was born in the UK and have always lived here, except for 4 years as a child in my parents’ home country. I have the same citizenship as my parents because originally as a child you had to be on a parent’s passport. I think I therefore have easy-ish access to British citizenship but it’s not something I ever imagined applying for.

“For people born in the UK between 1 January 1983 and 1 October 2000:

You’re automatically a British citizen if when you were born at least one of your parents was both:

• a citizen of a country that was in the EU or the EEA at the time
• living in the UK with free movement rights

If the parent that meets these conditions is your father, he must have been married to your mother when you were born.”

So I think EU citizens living in the UK with free movement rights are treated as having had indefinite leave to remain (because effectively they did from the day they arrived, and they weren’t eligible to actually apply for ILR at the time). Possibly wouldn’t apply if they were here as students, but if they were working/living long-term in the UK, then their kids would be UK citizens at birth.

www.gov.uk/check-british-citizenship/born-in-the-uk-between-1-january-1983-and-1-october-2000

OP - having read the rules more closely, you are very possibly a British citizen already. If you were born pre-1983, you acquired citizenship at birth regardless of the citizenship/immigration status of your parents. If you were born post-1983 to parents who were citizens of countries that were, at the time, members of the EU/EEA, then you also acquired citizenship at birth.

Of course natural born citizens have zero requirement to ever swear allegiance to the monarch (unless they choose to join a profession that requires it). It's just taken for read. (And I suspect a lot of people give it no thought for themselves).

I do get the emotional aspect. I am a dual citizen. British by birth. I got my Australia passport purely for greater security. But getting Australian citizenship had no impact on my identity. For me it was purely a legal decision to make me more secure in the country and allow me to move back to Australia if I need to.

You don’t want to wait till Reform get in and it becomes too late.

If it takes a year your could wait a year to see how things are shaping up.

Our county council went reform in may and if what they're doing is an example of what they would do in government then people will soon start changing their mind. They are causing utter chaos here.

I have gone through this recently for another country for the whole family.

My take on it is do it before you need to. It takes a while and you won’t want to feel under pressure.

Agree with doing it before you need to especially if you don’t have to choose between two. My DDad has had ILR for 50 years, he doesn’t feel able to go through the process now. I wish he’d done it years ago.

"Having sole citizenship of that country is sort of symbolic. A reminder of my heritage. I understand that having dual citizenship would not change that but it does feel conflicting. Like I’m letting that side of my heritage go"

This doesn't make any sense at all. If you get dual citizenship then you're not letting anything go. You will be both a citizen of a country and heritage you closely align with and also a citizen of your birth country and where you live full time. Your logic is a bit bonkers to be honest.

Anyone born in the UK isn’t necessarily a British citizen- if your parents (more importantly, the mother) aren’t British citizens then you wouldn’t automatically be one. I used to work in Nationality and it’s common misconception.

If you become a British citizen then it doesn’t affect your other nationality (although some
countries don’t allow dual citizenship so if they find out…)

you are not reading enough. Reform said if they get in, they plan to deport people on ILR. So having ILR may not mean a lot in a few years.

Yes, I looked this up - neither of my parents fit these criteria! And they'd been in the country less than five years at the time of my birth, iirc. Will ask my mother how she sorted it.

I am reading enough thank you, I don't believe this will ever happen, and if it does, I won't be one of those that the new Government would be looking to deport. Gets people talking for sure. Reform don't know what they are doing, things change with the wind.
Stuff to think about for sure, I know my DH would be quite relieved if I took my finger out and just organised it.

Neither parents were born here or have uk citizenship.

I wouldn't. Not in this climate.

Given that the goalposts seems to be moving a lot at the moment go and see an immigration advisor. They should be able to advise you on your options.

Unless you have a British parent then it's not automatically making you a UK citizen just by being born here. This has been in effect since 1982.

So if he OP was born before then shed be ok as a British citizen, if after it's not so clear cut if neither parent is British

Thankyou

It was a surprise too that if born here and not automatically a citizen that someone wouldn't have already taken steps to become one.

Learned lots from replies.

Be very sure OP if you decide not to - who knows what might happen - remember that the Windrush generation in the 50’s could never have foreseen that they might be deported 40-50 years later. And if anything were to happen - say you were driving a car, had an accident and the police charged you with dangerous driving - what if Reform passed a law about having a criminal record and ILR status? You just never know and with the rise of the right, need to take precautions.

Unfortunately I think it’s these types of situations that people will pick and run with. You’ve lived your whole life in the UK, presumably benefitted from it (else why didn’t your parents live in your country of heritage) but you don’t want to identify as British, even as a dual national.

Im not saying these are my views, but id imagine this type of thing will be like petrol to a flame. It makes people feel the country has been “used”.

My wife has had ILR for about 10 years now. She hasn’t bothered with Citizenship - mainly for the emotional reasons listed and because she hates paperwork, despite my wanting her to get it - during the last Conservative government some of the rhetoric around deporting criminals got a bit worrying - not that she is a criminal, but something like an at fault car accident could have conceivably put her at minor risk if the home office needed to keep their stats up/ she got the wrong magistrate. It’s something we will sort out now, given Reform’s statements. At the very least they plan on rescinding permanent ILR and forcing anyone with it to apply for 5 year visas - which with the visa fee and other charges could be several thousand pounds every five years; in a worst case, they have talked about removing this option for people who are not working, so people with current ILR/ their new 5 year visas may find that the 5 year visa is not an option when they retire, so they’d lose any rights to remain at pension age, despite having worked for the majority of their time/life here.

Reform’s proposal is very worrying. A relative came to England as a child in the 60s from a Commonwealth country. Part of the wave of migration that was encouraged due to a workforce shortage. They have ILR from childhood. Following the Windrush scandal they followed the procedures advised by the home office and were told they didn’t need citizenship. Their home country didn’t allow dual nationality for a long time. I think he could get citizenship if really needed but this would involve taking the test. I imagine this may be difficult for some elderly people who are long retired. If they apply it retrospectively it really will be cruel. Sadly many British people seem to have very little knowledge about our links to the commonwealth countries and the history of how people from these countries came to live here.

I'm also a dual national. When I was going through it all, I always saw ILR as a temporary/limbo status. It was years ago now, but it never occurred to stay on it for ever. I don't feel less connected to my birth heritage! Also- who even asks day to day?

Other than the cost of the passport, I have idea why anyone would stay on it? Maybe only IF you had to give up their original citizenship.

DH has ILTR. We didn’t go for citizenship because we couldn’t afford it while we sorting everything out when we got married. Also, because due to some admin issues when renewing a visa when he was first here he was an illegal immigrant for a weekend.
We were advised that it didn’t matter as the authorities who were renewing the visa knew it was an error but might cause issues if it showed up if he decided to go for citizenship. So we didn’t bother. We’ve been married for 20 years and have 2 kids. I have no idea what we’ll do.

but it's not just the cost of a passport, it's the application fee for citizenship (£1735) plus cost of the test of Britishness (£50 x a few times as you need 80% to pass) Those older than 65 do not need to take this test.