‘Post-Brexit money-spinner:’ Readers slam new UK passport rules for dual citizens

Independent readers are questioning new rules requiring dual British citizens to enter the country using a British passport or certificate of entitlement from 25 February.

Until now, many have been able to pass through the UK border using foreign passports, including EU ones, without any issues.

The changes are part of the Home Office’s new ETA scheme, which will soon require visitors from countries that do not need a visa to travel to the UK to obtain an ETA before arrival.

Readers highlighted the suddenness and cost of the changes. Many dual nationals have allowed UK passports to lapse, thinking they no longer needed them, and will now face added expense: a passport can cost more than £100, while a certificate of entitlement costs £589.

Some questioned how the rules will be enforced. Dual nationals often travel on foreign passports that already allow entry, and the border system may not reliably flag UK citizenship.

One reader described a catch-22: airlines may refuse boarding to those who cannot obtain an ETA because they are British, yet travellers could also be denied entry at the border without the correct passport.

Several readers pointed out that dual nationality is often acquired automatically, and renouncing it is legally complex and expensive. While a few suggested reforms, such as choosing a nationality at 18, most felt the change simply adds unnecessary hassle.

Here’s what you had to say:

This sounds like a money-spinner. After Brexit, hundreds of thousands of people who had an EU parent or parents applied for an EU passport (including myself). Many of these will have reasoned that they no longer need a UK passport. Suppose, for the sake of argument, there are 100,000 such people. At £100 per British passport, that’s £10 million.

Unless I had come across this article, I would have had no idea about the change – which is being brought in with astonishing rapidity. A lot of people are going to be very unhappy about it, and it’s not going to be a vote-winner. I don’t believe most other countries have such a policy. It will be exploited by the right, who will spin it as “they let people in with no passport, but you, who were born here, have to have two.”

Musil

This is causing a panic here in Australia, where there are a huge number of dual British citizens who let their passports lapse and only travelled on Australian passports. They also have Australian-born kids who are automatic British citizens by descent but have only ever had an Australian passport. People are asking if their children all need to get British passports now to enter the UK. The Australian passport is already the most expensive one in the world, about £200 for an adult one.

There is the option of renouncing British citizenship, but it’s expensive and probably not wise to do in these unstable times.

Attache321

I don’t get it. If they are travelling on a passport other than British that allows them to enter the country, then how can they be stopped? Also, is the computer system so clued up that when a person enters on a foreign passport it will know they have dual nationality?

Michael

Let me get this straight: British citizens who travel to the UK on a foreign passport (perhaps because they don’t renew the UK one), and have valid certificates or visa waiver documents suitable for the passport they are travelling on, will be denied entry at the UK border because they didn’t enter on a UK passport?

Wow, that’s some proper fascism there. What has this country come to? Makes me want to come back and visit even less…

PJHathersage

If you don’t tell the Border Force that you have dual nationality, how will they know? Are they going to ask for secondary proof of nationality for all people with foreign passports?

GrymSdijk

The purpose of dual nationality: one purpose is to retain the freedom of movement we lost after Brexit. Hundreds of thousands of British people – perhaps a million, no one knows – were resident in EU countries when the UK decided to leave the EU.

As a result, we lost the benefits of EU membership, including the right to reside in our EU host countries. Everyone had to find a solution, and the easiest one for many people was to apply for naturalisation in the host country. That’s what I did, and I’m now a dual citizen.

Morseman

The border control system already attaches the right to enter the country to foreign passport holders, e.g., people who have ILR for settled status.

Can’t they extend the system for dual nationals who just happen to have only a foreign passport?

What about entering the country with a visa waiver (like a tourist)? Once you are here, if you have documentation that you have the right to stay, you are OK, which makes the requirement to have the correct passport a bit less important…

MrY

Some people have dual nationality by default. If, say, a British person by birth who lives in another country becomes a naturalised citizen of that country, their British citizenship remains, and it is extremely hard, legally expensive, and time-consuming to renounce; in effect, it clings to the person whether they want it or not.

CillChaoi

Currently, if you are a US citizen who has dual citizenship US/UK, as long as you have the correct documentation proving you have UK citizenship, you can enter using a US passport. However, nearly every dual citizen that I know (and I know quite a few) the first thing they did was get a UK passport, as it saves the hassle at immigration.

Lestat57

The catch-22 over this has been in action since last summer. If you are a British citizen travelling to the UK on a foreign passport, you can’t apply for an ETA because you are a British citizen, but you could be denied boarding (by the airline) or entry because they don’t know that you’re British (even though you were just refused an ETA because they know you’re British).

KeithB

Some of the comments have been edited for this article for brevity and clarity.

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