Quick Brexit and passport question. ...

[kalidarkone]

I was born in the UK. Dad from Belfast. Ma from Jamaica.

I have an Irish passport, which I've had for 5 years. No British Passport. Should I get a British passport?

Although being deported to the Irish Republic may not be so bad......

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

I was born in the UK. Dad from Belfast. Ma from Jamaica.

I have an Irish passport, which I've had for 5 years. No British Passport. Should I get a British passport?

Although being deported to the Irish Republic may not be so bad......

You will be fine with a Paddy one, the rules regarding that are different to and predate the EU.

It seems if you have a non-EU spouse it may cause issues.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

There have been special conditions for freedom of movement between UK and Ireland since before the EU / EEC was a thing.

From what I gather, the intention is that this will stay in place whatever happens.

I've also read that quite a few people who qualify for an Irish passport are getting one to maintain EU citizen rights after brexit.

My confidence in the government / home office not to balls it all up is not that great...

 

[cupid_stunt]

Being born in the UK/north of Ireland entitles you to both Irish & British passports, if you so wish.

Brexit, if it happens, will make no different to Irish people living the UK, or Brits living in the Republic.

 

[kalidarkone]

You will be fine with a Paddy one, the rules regarding that are different to and predate the EU.

It seems if you have a non-EU spouse it may cause issues.

Thanks. After the Windrush scandal and all this stuff with back stops and hard boarders I felt it prudent not to take anything for granted concerning the right to remain in the UK!

 

[dessiato]

Although it's expensive could it be worth having both just to be safe?

 

[kalidarkone]

There have been special conditions for freedom of movement between UK and Ireland since before the EU / EEC was a thing.

From what I gather, the intention is that this will stay in place whatever happens.

I've also read that quite a few people who qualify for an Irish passport are getting one to maintain EU citizen rights after brexit.

My confidence in the government / home office not to balls it all up is not that great...

Exactly - might get a British one too just to cover all bases....

 

[cupid_stunt]

Although it's expensive could it be worth having both just to be safe?

It shouldn't be expensive, as kalidarkone was born in the UK, it's not like applying for British citizenship for those from other countries.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Get a 10 year British one in March and it will still have European Union on the cover, will be gone by April and by autumn it will be blue.

 

[Raheem]

As already mentioned, there are rights for Irish passport holders that predate the EU. However, from what I understand, there are no rules or procedures associated with these rights and the legislation is completely vague about how they operate. So, depending on how things work out, there's a risk of ending up with a situation where you theoretically have a right to work etc in the UK but you have difficulty exercising it. Probably not a very high risk, I'd say, but a risk.

 

[kebabking]

I'd probably advise getting a UK passport just in case.

We simply have no idea what the world is going to look like in 8 years time, even foretelling what it will look like in 6 months is a game for mugs - my view is that there's a 90% chance that you getting a UK passport will turn out to be a complete waste of time and money, but a small chance that it will be the difference between an easy life and a bloody nightmare.

If it all goes tits up - a small chance, but a real one, IMV - then you may find looking at a UK passport a great deal more comforting than looking for a UK passport.

 

[dessiato]

Although it's expensive could it be worth having both just to be safe?

But passports aren't cheap. Two years ago mine was about £150.

It's worth noting that some offices are less expensive than others. I found Peterborough was a good twenty pounds dearer than Glasgow. As it happened I could just as easily go to either.

 

[Spymaster]

Being born in the UK/north of Ireland entitles you to both Irish & British passports, if you so wish.

Being born in Northern Ireland does; being born anywhere else in the UK certainly does not.

 

[kalidarkone]

Being born in Northern Ireland does; being born anywhere else in the UK certainly does not.

You are correct. It's,all about where you/parents/ grandparents were born and when. My Grandparents were born and resided in Northern Ireland before 1922. The UK border came about then. That's why I'm able to have an Irish passport. My dad's got one too.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

I'd get a British passport too, just to be on the safe side. I got one late last year - about 70 odd quid I think (renewal - not sure if a first time passport is more expensive).

 

[kalidarkone]

I'd get a British passport too, just to be on the safe side. I got one late last year - about 70 odd quid I think (renewal - not sure if a first time passport is more expensive).

It would be a renewal, I've had many before. And yeh I agree. Just in case as I said up thread

 

[eoin_k]

Being born in Northern Ireland does; being born anywhere else in the UK certainly does not.

I think it might have more to do with establishing ancestoral connection to pre-partition Ireland .

 

[MickiQ]

I renewed my British passport at the post office a year ago and it cost me £82.50 I think it's £85 now, it was very quick, I had the replacement one within about a week, the one I surrendered had a couple of month on it so don't know if renewing an expired one takes longer.
If you have a photocard driving licence and the photo on it is clearly you or the new photos clearly show the same person as the photos in the old one you don't have to muck about with getting the back signed either.
Both Ireland and the UK allow dual citizenship so you can have a current passport for both countries and travel on whichever you want to.
Both the Irish and British Govt's have agreed (one of the few damn things they have agreed on) is tht Irish citizens in the UK will retain all their current rights with regards to living, working and voting in the UK post-Brexit.
None of my business of course but since one of your parents was presumably a Jamaican citizen and Jamaica also allows dual citizenship, despite being born outside Jamaica you are probably entitled to a Jamaican one as well if you want it.

 

[Pickman's model]

Being born in the UK/north of Ireland entitles you to both Irish & British passports, if you so wish.

If you're born in both the UK and north of Ireland. But so few of us manage that

 

[kebabking]

It's no bad thing having bolt-holes in your pocket, but the downside of having more than one passport/citizenship is that it's much easier for the various governments to strip you of their citizenship if you have others.

I'm struggling to think of quite what mechanism/events would provoke the UK or Irish governments to strip each others citizens of their citizenship, but if - on the day Russian forces left Afghanistan in 1989 - you'd have suggested that a mere 12 years later NATO would be on the cusp of fighting a 20 year war in the Afghan desert, you'd have been laughed off the street. And probably sectioned...

 

[MickiQ]

It's no bad thing having bolt-holes in your pocket, but the downside of having more than one passport/citizenship is that it's much easier for the various governments to strip you of their citizenship if you have others.

I'm struggling to think of quite what mechanism/events would provoke the UK or Irish governments to strip each others citizens of their citizenship, but if - on the day Russian forces left Afghanistan in 1989 - you'd have suggested that a mere 12 years later NATO would be on the cusp of fighting a 20 year war in the Afghan desert, you'd have been laughed off the street. And probably sectioned...

I understand you can't be stripped of British citizenship if you acquired it by birth only if you acquired it via nationalisation though you can renounce it. (and even then you can get it back)
No idea about Eire or Jamaica but I would lay good money that in EIre's case at least it is almost certainly the same. It looks like kalidarkone has 2 and possibly 3 birthright citizenships that she cant' be stripped of.

 

[Gramsci]

Irish citizens have come up on the Fate of EU citizens thread.

Government has promised Irish passport holders that they will not have to apply for "settled status". That they will be able to continue here as before.

The immigration minister, Caroline Nokes, said this.

The legal situation is not so clear. Irish nationals have rights here deriving from EU membership of Eire. These will go after Brexit leaving them to call back on previous agreements. Which aren't watertight. With what happened to Commonwealth citizens under Mays hostile environment recent history I would not gaurentee long term rights of those holding Eire citizenship living in UK.

The government's official position – restated by Nokes yesterday – is that the rights of the Irish in Britain are guaranteed by the Common Travel Area and the Ireland Act of 1949, which stipulated that neither Ireland nor its citizens were foreign for the purposes of UK law.

Here the good news story starts to fall apart. The Common Travel Area is a political agreement. It is non-binding and confers no legal rights upon Irish or British citizens. Contrary to what Nokes and the government appear to believe, its continued existence after Brexit won't guarantee that the Irish in Britain "have all of the access to benefits and services" they have now, just a preferential migration regime.

and

The inconvenient truth appears to be that most of the actual, legally-watertight privileges enjoyed by Irish people in Britain instead flow from EU citizenship. A report by leading migration barrister Simon Cox found in November that the existing settlement is a "patchwork that may fall apart under post-Brexit political and practical pressures" and said it was impossible to identify a single legal right explicitly conferred on Irish nationals by the 1949 act.

The rights to live, work, access the NHS for free, claim benefits and welfare, and that of British citizenship for children born to Irish parents will all be legally unclear should the government choose merely to keep things as they are in legal terms. Ditto the rights of Irish citizens who arrive from outside the CTA to live and work in the UK.

After Windrush, will the rights of the Irish in Brexit Britain really be safe?

So rights of Irish citizens here in UK post Brexit aren't guaranteed long term.

Following the Fate of EU citizens post Brexit thread does not make me feel at all sanguine about long term future of any EU national post Brexit.

The government has already backtracked on promises to EU nationals from other countries when Brexit happens.

 

[Spymaster]

You are correct. It's,all about where you/parents/ grandparents were born and when. My Grandparents were born and resided in Northern Ireland before 1922. The UK border came about then. That's why I'm able to have an Irish passport. My dad's got one too.

Yes, I have both. If a parent was born on the island of Ireland, you are automatically deemed an Irish citizen by the Irish government so it's just a case of applying for the passport. If it was a grandparent (and not a parent) born there, there's a bit more messing about (you have to register on the Foreign Births Register prior to applying for a passport).

 

[Idris2002]

As already mentioned, there are rights for Irish passport holders that predate the EU. However, from what I understand, there are no rules or procedures associated with these rights and the legislation is completely vague about how they operate. So, depending on how things work out, there's a risk of ending up with a situation where you theoretically have a right to work etc in the UK but you have difficulty exercising it. Probably not a very high risk, I'd say, but a risk.

The last thing I read - before leaving "Great" Britain never to return - is that the legal situation is much murkier than we suppose, and that we may not have "automatic permanent leave to remain" as we thought we had.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

According to the government website:

If you were born in the UK or a British colony before 1 January 1983
You became a British citizen on 1 January 1983 if both of the following apply:

• you were a citizen of the UK and Colonies (CUKC) on 31 December 1982
• you had the ‘right of abode’ in the UK

This includes people who were born in a British colony and had the ‘right of abode’ in the UK.

It also includes people who:

• were born in the UK
• have been naturalised in the UK
• had registered as a citizen of the UK and Colonies (CUKC)
• could prove legitimate descent from a father to whom one of these applies

‘Right of abode’ means you:

• are entirely free from UK Immigration Control and don’t need permission from an Immigration Officer to enter the UK
• can live and work in the UK without restriction

If you were born in the UK on or after 1 January 1983
You don’t automatically get British citizenship if you were born in the UK.

If you were born in the UK on or after 1 January 1983, you’ll be a British citizen if your mother or father was either:

• a British citizen when you were born
• ‘settled’ in the UK when you were born

‘Settled’ means you can stay in the UK without any time restrictions. This includes people who have one of the following:

• ‘right of abode’
• ‘indefinite leave to remain’
• permanent residence as an European Economic Area (EEA) national

In most cases you’ll be a British citizen if your mother or father was born in the UK or naturalised there at the time of your birth.

A passport is neither here nor there.

 

[kalidarkone]

None of my business of course but since one of your parents was presumably a Jamaican citizen and Jamaica also allows dual citizenship, despite being born outside Jamaica you are probably entitled to a Jamaican one as well if you want it.

Yeah I don't think having a Jamaican passport is an advantage Sadly.

 

[kalidarkone]

According to the government website:



A passport is neither here nor there.

Tell that to children of Windrush.
None of those people ever imagined they would be deported. This is why I will be renewing my UK passport in the next few weeks.

 

[MickiQ]

Yeah I don't think having a Jamaican passport is an advantage Sadly.

pity really you seem to be in quite a unique position, I know quite a few people with dual citizenships but only 1 with 3 and she acquired 1 by birth, 1 by naturalisation and 1 by naturalisation after marriage.