If you made your life here, why didn't you become a British citizen?

[DorothyL]

How do you respond to that as an EU citizen?

I came to the UK in 98. I never applied for British citizenship because I didn't see the need - I truly felt that the fact we were all EU meant it didn't matter!

Now I'm scared because in spite of being here so long I would probably not qualify for a permanent residency card because I wasn't working (SAHM/carer).

Wish I knew what will happen

I have not been offensive & I am not disgusting.

Right mango, let's see if I can phrase this in a way that won't get me deleted and in compliance with HQs recent request.

You said a few posts back that if someone wanted citizenship enough, they would save for it, and if they didn't want to they wouldn't. That post has now been deleted, but I think I'm ok to repeat that part because it was the personal attack against me that was the issue, rather than the bit I refer to now. That sentiment is utterly, magnificently offensive. It's wrong, for a start, because not all EEA nationals are able to save. Whether you think they are or not. And it's basically blaming people who are left in this predicament. Because hey, if you'd paid over a thousand pounds you wouldn't be in this mess and it's all about priorities.

I shan't repeat any accusations of being disgusting, as I don't want this to be deleted. People can decide for themselves what they think of someone whose vote is part of the reason this came about blaming others, who may or may not have disposable income, for not saving towards a previously unnecessary and expensive hurdle.

True rufus. To which I'd add wanting citizenship but not being able to afford it, not being able to pass Life in the UK or being practically unable to comply with all the bureaucratic obstacles.

Absolutely silent

You may have to leave at some point, I don't know, but most of you seem to be complaining endlessly about the UK so I am baffled why you stay here if it is so bad.

Oh, are immigrants supposed to be nothing but gushingly effusive about every aspect of life in Britain? And bend over and take it in the arse while saying 'thank you!' every time changes to the system screw us over? And never, ever be critical of anything British?

I don't know if I'd still live here 12 years on (non-EU immigrant) if I hadn't met and married a British bloke. I'd probably be less likely to hang around in the face of increasing xenophobic nonsense, and take my net contribution to the exchequer with me,but what's best for DH and the kids and our family as a whole outweighs what's nicest for me.

jassy

I agree with your comments

To be fair i think parts of the uk are shit and i complain quite regularly...

And i will put a shitload of money down on masses of uk people saying the same thing

Silent, give it a rest, stop haranguing me & take your ire out on someone else.

You are repeatedly misconstruing my intent, I do not 'blame' anyone for not applying for citizenship.

I have repeatedly stated that I am sympathetic to those people who are now in a worrying position.
I have repeatedly stated that I, too find the current situation & rules shocking and not fit for purpose.

I have nothing further to say to you.

I'm reminded of all the people who supposedly contacted the writers of 'Shit Towns' to complain when theirs weren't included!

Wonder how many Brits living on the Spanish costas took up Spanish citizenship? Given that many of them can't speak Spanish I imagine they would find a citizenship test pretty tricky.

babybarrister the Spanish citizenship exam has some really easy showbiz stuff but also has quite a lot of constitutional stuff about laws and parliament and powers of the monarchy/police and so on.

For those wondering about costs, I can tell you why I hesitated applying for Spanish citizenship until Brexit.
The citizenship exam costs 85€. It's not a piss of piss, you do need to do a bit of prep for it. If you don't have the specific langauge qualification required for the citizenship application (DELE) you need to pay about 150€ to sit that exam (not including lessons, just sitting the exam). Then you need a police certificate from your home country (45 quid plus courier charges of around 15€) and have that translated by a sworn translator and your birth certificate too, around €60-100. Then around €100 taxes on the application forms.
Why bother with all that if you have the right to live and work there? Especially if in the case of Spain if it means renouncing your own nationality (in the case of UK to Spanish naturalisation).

Bollocks mango.

When you said eligible EEA citizens could save if they didn't have the money, and if you don't save it's because you prioritise other things, you were 100% blaming people. There's no misconstruction possible there, however much you protest that you're sympathetic to their situation. That's not sympathy.

When you said eligible EEA citizens could save if they didn't have the money, and if you don't save it's because you prioritise other things,

Said neither of those statements.

You did. Conveniently enough, the post has now gone, but unluckily for you I remember.

Mango - it's very much how I construed your statements below, taken together:

I don't really understand why someone wouldn't apply for citizenship if they've decided to settle here.

If someone wanted to gain citizenship then they could save for it - as with most things.

if you want something enough you will save for it - if you don't, you won't.

Silent: I don't think that Mango tried to offend . I did not take it that way anyway.

However a different poster was preaching about being grateful to be on UK soil, saving and all that ..

Jassy, bit disingenuous to take 3 statements out of their original context and splice them together.
Let me put them in their original context:

I don't really understand why someone wouldn't apply for citizenship if they've decided to settle here.

I see this citizenship process as a pure administrative step

That's how I would view citizenship tbh, and uk does not require someone to renounce their original nationality - that's why I don't really understand why someone wouldn't apply for citizenship if they've decided to settle here.
(Obviously I understand why someone would choose not to if their home country doesn't allow dual citizenship etc)

If someone wanted to gain citizenship then they could save for it - as with most things.

If someone wanted to gain citizenship then they could save for it - as with most things.

It's a ridiculous cost, and should be much less - I agree; the process is ridiculously & unnecessarily over complicated and requires a massive overhaul - I agree; the citizenship test is ridiculous & massively irrelevant - I agree.
However, that is what is in place at this moment in time, and if an individual wants to become a citizen then those are the steps they need to complete.

if you want something enough you will save for it - if you don't, you won't.

You can keep getting uppity with me, and I don't particularly care tbh, but if you want something enough you will save for it - if you don't, you won't.
No matter how hard you try to make it appear so, I am not anti immigration.

Personally, I would hope that for all those who have settled here as EU citizens it becomes nothing more than an administrative tick-box exercise with a minimal admin fee - but as I'm not in charge of the HO or the country I sadly can't make that happen.

You did. Conveniently enough, the post has now gone, but unluckily for you I remember.

No.
I didn't.
Conveniently I have a copy of the deleted post, kindly sent to me by mn when they told me off for 'personally attacking' you.

Happy to repost it to prove I didn't say:

When you said eligible EEA citizens could save if they didn't have the money, and if you don't save it's because you prioritise other things,

I'm sorry, but you've taken other statements you made also in different contexts (such as the 'administrative' one) to try to excuse the cumulative impact of statements on the same subject in consecutive posts. It's not disingenuous at all. It's pointing out what you said - you don't know why people wouldn't get citizenship if they didn't have to renounce their own nationality, that if they wanted it they could save, and that if they didn't save they clearly didn't want it enough.

Pretty fucking clear.

Let me help you - I'm not saying you're anti-immigration, so stop trying to derail in that direction. I'm saying your assumptions about people who haven't taken out citizenship are wrong and insulting, and that your backtracking is transparent.

mango the uk might not ask people to renounce their citizenship but you have no idea in their home c ountry doesn't ask them to renounce to their original citizenship.
Which means that the. These people will have to chose to be British OR to be

I also find it this idea that people think that European should have planned years before to become British citizen 'just in case' becaus eye know the UK could go of the EU when 6 months ago that was an idea completely I possible - even DC didn't believe it would happen!! No one did. But somehow every single Eu citizens should have been able to see the durture and know ... Right....

Lastly, I am that anyone could consider applying for citizenship just a paperwork exercise.
For me, applying for citizenship implies the wish to become British. It's not a neutral act, just a bit of paper. Having done the paperwork, for all intent and purposes, I would be British. With the good sides (maybe I can travel to some places wo a visa thank to that) but with also all the negative sides.
It is reducing being a citizen to nothing at all. When actually the whole point of being a citizen of a country is that you are sharing values and customs, if not history.

^Lastly, I am shock that anyone could consider applying for citizenship just a paperwork exercise.
For me, applying for citizenship implies the wish to become British. It's not a neutral act, just a bit of paper. Having done the paperwork, for all intent and purposes, I would be British.^

Very true. The insistence on citizenship as a box-ticking administrative exercise to ensure personal security really devalues the concept of citizenship.

You can't say that you understand why someone wouldn't want to give up their original citizenship while at the same time presenting acquiring citizenship as purely administrative.

I reposted those posts in their entirety Jassy The administrative exercise line was commenting on what another poster had said re her viewing it just as an administrative thing.

Regardless, I've had enough of trying to defend myself on here now so I'm out.

Maybe I'm naive but I'm shocked at the idea that acquiring citizenship is a simply administrative act. Most naturalisation procedures are intended to ensure that it isn't a purely administrative "act of convenience" but that the person taking a new nationality has integrated into his/her host society and shares its fundamental values.

One of the reasons that I never took French citizenship (apart from the hassle factor) was that I never felt especially French. I'm integrated - I work here, I speak French, I have French friends and two French kids - but I've always felt more British and European than French.

One of the unfortunate side effects of the referendum is that I've felt less and less British over the last year - and after completing my son's French nationality procedure (a process in which the French administration showed itself to be efficient and human) I felt for the first time that I actively want to become French. At this rate I may even consider renouncing my British nationality ...

I chose to be European. I am British.

I don't see the contradiction.

This is the ENTIRE point.

Misti it was a purely administrative task for me. And funnily enough the Brexit vote confirmed it for me, I don't think of myself as British. But then Dh, dd1 and dd2 are all Irish so for me it was purely to get an EU passport.

We'll probably move to Ireland now and when I get citizenship I will renounce my British citizenship. Only because I want to be what Dh and my girls are.

And Mango as my DH is Irish it would be a cold day in hell before he'd take up citizenship here, administration task or not.

FourtotheFloor that doesn't sound like a purely administrative decision at all: you actively want to be Irish, so that you share your family's nationality, and you prefer being Irish to being British to the point of renouncing your UK citizenship.

(Not remotely criticising your decision, just the use of the word "administrative" here. Irish doesn't sound like a nationality of convenience for you, which is what Mango seemed to be talking about).

I've taken British citizenship purely so that I would have an EU passport. Getting my Irish citizenship wouldn't be an administrative task but as you said, sharing my family's nationality.