John Vassiliou

It’s a love-in at the home affairs committee as Yvette Cooper runs down the clock | John Crace Forget tough scrutiny of small boats or asylum hotels – this home secretary appears to lead a charmed life

The only good bit. What a bore it was. CJ was there too at least, but he managed to sit off camera. This John Crace write up he shared with me sums it up www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

What do you think? Should we offer visas in exchange for investment? If you were in charge of creating an investor visa, how would you structure it?

For example, it could go to:
- social care to improve availability and viability,
- a wide-spread series of pothole repairs or pavement resurfacing,
- a litter-picking/nature clean-up project,
- playpark and public park restoration work.

I would love to see an investment visa where there is a direct large lump-sum payment in exchange for residency with no financial return, where the funds are directly put to specified and publicly accountable/viewable locally-administered projects to improve citizen well-being.

Rumours in Bloomberg today suggest a possible re-emergence of an investor visa, this time where money is channelled into "strategically important" areas such as AI, clean energy, and life sciences. It's unclear if investors would expect a return on investment or not.

Investors could simply park their money in an investment portfolio for five years, extract it (pocketing any gains), and secure indefinite leave to remain at the end. That version of the investor visa was abruptly axed following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and it's been all quiet since.

Until 2022 the UK offered residency for investing £2million into UK companies (including shares in an investment portfolio). It had long been questioned whether that policy was of any actual value to the UK.

UK Mulls New Investor Visa Targeting Key Strategic Industries The UK is drawing up plans for a special visa for foreigners who invest significant sums in Britain, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government seeks to blunt the economic blow from recent tax hikes ...

Investor visas - yay or nay? Should the UK allow foreign citizens to buy residence in the UK through investment? What would you spend the money on?

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

From the 2009 article: “migrants will need to take extra steps to "earn" citizenship and become fully paid-up members of society.”

“Fully paid-up members of society” is a phrase that really grinds my gears. I’m sure we’ll see it rearing its head again soon!

Unless of course the rationale is that after a decade of sponsored work and visa renewal fees migrants will no longer be “strangers”, instead having been ground down into the jaded and bitter ranks of their soon-to-be compatriots.

That line of thinking really needs fleshed out and tested because it feels contradictory to the objective of not being an “island of strangers” to deny people an opportunity to integrate into life, free of sponsorship.

A gov source said Home Secretary Yvette Cooper had for some time been concerned that under the current five-year process there is set to be a significant increase in settlement and citizenship applications in the next few years, reflecting the surge in immigration in the early years of this decade.

Good summary! I’ll be amazed if this goes anywhere but let’s see…

There will definitely be some. Would be interesting to see numbers by year and application type (I haven’t had time to search). My anecdotal experience is mk1 was an unknown, prompting many enquiries which didn’t translate into actual moves. Mk2 has felt very different. There is no unknown.

This 2022 law change built on previous efforts (including a 2018 Supreme Court case I was involved in) to tackle discrimination in nationality law. Now the doors are open for people with UK-born grandmothers, or maternal grandfathers, to claim what should have been theirs at birth.

British citizenship can normally only descend down to the first generation born abroad.

Before 1988 however, citizenship could pass down two generations abroad (known as “double descent”), but only through the male line.

Why is this the case?

Before 1983, *women could not pass on their citizenship*.

Whilst this changed from 1983 onwards, changes were not retrospective, so children born to British women abroad before that missed out.

Who can now benefit?

Anyone born in a non-commonwealth country before 1988 (eg the USA), with a UK-born grandmother or maternal grandfather.

Many of my clients in this area are descendants of British World War II “war brides” who married an American soldier and moved across the Atlantic.

Easy to attribute solely to politics, but article misses the perfect confluence of politics plus a major 2022 amendment to the British Nationality Act that laid the groundwork for foreign adults to register if they’d missed out due to historical legislative unfairness.

Americans apply for UK citizenship in record numbers Donald Trump’s election and British tax changes believed to be behind 40% rise in applications

🇺🇸 40% increase in Americans applying for British citizenship, with a surge reported in the last quarter of 2024. 🇬🇧

www.ft.com/content/e20a...

A lot of misinformation going around about this 'Gazan's using the Ukraine Scheme' court case. This is an unreported case from the Upper Tribunal available here: tribunalsdecisions.service.gov.uk/utiac/ui-202... 🧵

So well expressed, I doubt I’d be able to be that articulate off the cuff like that!

I’m consistently amazed at the number of views this article gets each year.

I can't remember the last time I saw something so beautiful. Astonishing. Heart breaking. Politically affirming.

The visa application alone costs £3,250 (or £3,750 if you want a decision in 30 working days). 96% of these applications are refused (according to statistics that are a few years out of date now). I'm pleased to say this was one of the 4%.

(a) the care is not available and there is no person in that country who can reasonably provide it: or
(b) the care is not affordable.

They must prove they require long-term personal care as a result of age, illness, or disability, and prove they are unable to obtain the required level of care in the country where they are living, even with the financial help of the sponsor because either:

The only way a foreign parent of a British adult can qualify for a visa based on their relationship is by meeting the stringent requirements of the Adult Dependent Relative visa route.

Unlike the recent conflict in Ukraine, no humanitarian visa routes have been established for Palestinian family members of British citizens. Those who manage to escape from Gaza and want to join family in the UK have to fit themselves under existing non-humanitarian visa routes.