There is a certain irony in that because they would be thrown out of the Australian Parliament. The Constitution states:
44. Any person who -
(i.) Is under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power: or
snipped other clauses
shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.
Several MPs have been thrown out by the High Court for holding British, New Zealand or any other nationality (sometimes even when they didn’t know they had) yet in Britain you can be beholden to or working for a foreign power and remain in Parliament.
Bruce, it may be that Blighty is a small island and some inhabitants may feel the need to reserve the right to leave in a hurry, should we get flooded or similar.
It is odd though isn’t it? British MPs holding citizenship in a Foreign Power, Would it be tolerated if they held Russian or Chinese citizenship? They could be IRA sympathisers infiltrating the British Parliament to create a united Ireland, could that explain why Brexit was such a dogs breakfast?
You can’t be president of the USA unless you were born there (I think that is true) . You can be an Australian MP or even PM no matter where you were born as long as you do all that you can to renounce that citizenship - there are some countries which won’t allow you to renounce citizenship apparently so you have to show that you tried very hard to do so.
Recent PMs Tony Abbot and Julia Gillard were both born in the UK
The Irish have always had special arrangements in the U.K. .
Even at the height of the IRA atrocities citizens of The ROI did not need passports to come to the U.K. .
They still don’t .
Why is this unusual ? People have dual nationality for loads of reasons, in the pecking order, I think Brexit would be last on the list, unless your an EU headbanger and then only an EU passport will do, unless again your on UK benefits.
Funny, only a few months ago Australia and New Zealand wouldn’t let anyone in or out of the countries at all, regardless if you had a right to live there or not and regardless of what it said on your passport.
I’d rather be here to be honest, at least I’m not living under house arrest.
For UK citizens having a passport from an EU country gives many advantages. There is automatic rights of residency and no need to apply for residency permits. For those not yet moved but who want to, the EU country citizenship automatically gives them a right to work in the EU country of choice. Whereas most visas, which are required prior to obtaining a residency permit, do not permit work. This is proving to be a significant issue for some.
And that does not mean that anyone who gets, say, an Irish passport is a supporter of the institution that is the EU. It just means these are people want more from life than sitting where they are and want to experience different cultures. That and, for many, a bit more sun and a bit less dismal UK politics (and dismal empty claims like being called an “EU headbanger”).
If people wish to have an EU passport then thats fine by me, just make sure if they want to live here with their EU passport, they will also have to apply for a UK visa - it works both ways.
I have some relatives in France and Spain who told me that many Brits who had happily retired there and bought properties for over a decade where now packing back because their pension were not sufficient anymore (due to the sterling decline) and the fact that they had also lost their free medical care rights there.
No, that is not always true. For many EU countries you can obtain (if you qualify) their citizenship (and thus their passport) and retain UK citizenship. This is a thing called joint citizenship and it is quite common - giving you two passports. So as a UK citizen who also has a passport from another country you can live and work in the UK with no need for a visa.
Also, please stop talking about EU passports. There is only passports from countries in the EU. And these are only obtained once you are awarded citizenship of that country.
You are very right - and its worse than that for some. The sterling decline costs some people hundreds of euros of month and has done for 6 years now. Even more problematic, and even more specifically to do with Brexit, is that many UK banks have told customers living in the EU that their accounts are to close. Pretty much all the high street banks have closed thousands of accounts of people living in the EU. This has been a massive problem for some.
The loss of medical cover should not have happened if residency permits were issued. I was fully in the French system prior to Brexit, then got my residency permit - and the access to health care has not changed. However I’m aware of two problems here. One is that some people had gained access to their local countries medical system but were not paying taxes in that country. They were playing the game which was allowed by a lack of control between rights & obligations to reside and rights to get health care (this was specifically for retired people where the access to the local health care was automatic). The need for residency permits has formalised people’s living in their country - which means being chased up by the tax authorities and possibly getting demands for years of non-payments of tax.
The second problem is where the granting of residency permits has not worked out in the way the EU/UK agreed it should. Portugal, I understand, has been remiss in not issuing residency permits to UK citizens living there. This has left many thousands in limbo - possibly with no access to a health system they had been in, possibly with no rights to re-enter Portugal if they leave for any reason.
Rishi Sunak is now looking to fill a £40bn black hole with tax hikes &
devastating cuts to public spending
Meanwhile the hard Brexit he helped to inflict will cost the country about
£100bn a year in lost output
Funnily enough I had an acquaintance living in Australia who had to return to the UK because the British pension was insufficient to live on here when the AU$ reached US$1.10 (long tern average is US 70c)
As it happened I did very well out of that as I bought UK pounds at that price and sold the residue recently when the Aussie dollar was US70c
Nothing to do with Brexit though, I felt sorry for the poor bugger, the visa cost a fortune and he couldn’t get an Aussie pension.
But surely you don’t rely on the BBC for news? Of course such a commie, left wing organisation will slander a good, right wing, conservative government led by Scotty from Marketing.
But even they say “feel abandoned” which is not quite the same as “abandoned”. Sure it was hard to get back because of soaring air fares and the lack of flights during the pandemic but the government didn’t stop them returning.
You would have a legitimate complaint if you had blabbered on about state border closures but even then I assure you that a nation with a whole continent to wander about on doesn’t feel as claustrophobic as those on an overcrowded tiny European island (not my words but those of your compatriots) so I do sympathise with your anger.
