All Articles: Blog news

Holiday

Colin is now off on holiday for a fortnight so updates will be even slower than the last fortnight. There are a couple of posts

Read More »

Happy Fifth Birthday!

Yet again I missed the blog’s birthday, which was 7 March. Unbelievably (for so, so many reasons) the blog has now been going for over

Read More »

Going for Glory: Part 2

Free Movement entirely retracts the article that was previously published here regarding the Chapti case and apologises to those involved. The comments in the article

Read More »

Fundraising

Got a Kindle for Christmas? Wondering what to do with it now you’ve read the first couple of chapters of Great Expectations and then swiftly moved

Read More »

Blog changes

Regular visitors to the website will have noticed some changes over the Christmas period. A second column has been introduced on the right with Renaissance

Read More »

Blog problems

The blog has been experiencing a few problems over the last few days, for which I apologise. The hosting provider moved the blog to a

Read More »

Blog changes ahead

There will be some changes coming on Free Movement. This has been absorbing quite a lot of my rather limited time of late, and there

Read More »

Immigration control

Passing through immigration control on my return to the UK yesterday, my wife had to restrain me from taking a photograph of one of the

Read More »

Free Movement is away

I’m off on holiday and am delighted to say that I won’t be back for three weeks. I’d hoped to set a couple of posts

Read More »

One MILLION hits!

Free Movement has just hit one MILLION, er, hits. As with Dr Evil, that isn’t actually a lot of hits in today’s world, but for

Read More »

BAILII fundraising

BAILII, the invaluable resource which provides much of the material for this blog, is under threat of closure. It seems that the Ministry of Justice

Read More »

Happy Birthday!

It had escaped my attention that Free Movement was four years old on 7 March 2011. The first ever post was published on that day,

Read More »

New look

After a grand total of 50 votes, 74% of which were in favour of the new look, the new look is duly adopted. The four

Read More »

Blog news

As some may have noticed, I’ve made a few minor changes to the blog in the last few days. I’ve added new pages about instructing

Read More »

2010 in review

Happy New Year to you all. May 2011 usher in a new era of sanity in UK immigration law and practice… WordPress, through whom this

Read More »

Future of Free Movement

I have decided that I will revive Free Movement in some shape or form in the near future, although not quite yet. There is just

Read More »

Winding down

I have taken the surprisingly easy decision to wind down Free Movement. For reasons that continue to escape me and which have never been explained

Read More »

Adverts on Free Movement

It has come to my attention that Google Ads sometimes (or possibly always) show on Free Movement to those not already logged in as WordPress

Read More »

Stats

I’m up late this evening with plenty more work still do to, and like many bloggers (er, all of us, I suspect) will check my blog

Read More »

Free Movement Too

In the really very small world of UK immigration websites, someone has seen fit to set up another one called Free Movement. I’ve tried politely

Read More »

Vacuous and banal

That’s Twitter for you. Or so I thought… Long term and very observant readers may have noticed a brief and unsuccessful experiment with Twitter some

Read More »

Museum of immigration

I’ve just visited the Immigration Museum in Melbourne, Australia. It is based in one of the city’s grand buildings, and one which is tied to the

Read More »

Temporary migration

Free Movement is leaving for warmer climes and will return embarrassingly late in January. I hope you all have a good Christmas break, and I

Read More »

Work in progress…

As you can see, I’ve made some presentational changes to the blog over the weekend. Votes were overwhelmingly in favour of de-orangification! I’m looking for

Read More »

Slight tweaks

I’ve made a few slight changes to the blog I thought I ought to explain. The UKBA press department has gone mad in recent months

Read More »

Cambridge College of Learning

Enough is enough. I’ve deleted the earlier Cambridge College of Learning posts and comments because I am concerned that this website was being used by

Read More »

Silly season

I’m going to be away for a while and will begin posting again at the beginning of September. In the meantime, I hope you all

Read More »

Blog news

Following a comment on the comments system, I thought I better do a quick update. Firstly, I’ve been very busy recently and as a result

Read More »

Free Movement is back

But lacks the energy to write anything intelligent. Par for the course, some might claim. I have however been deleting the many comments I now unfortunately receive

Read More »

Free Movement is away

After a long day in court fighting a losing battle and with plenty of work still to do before Christmas, Free Movement is signing off

Read More »

A few changes to the blog

I’ve decided to make a few changes to the blog, which I hope are improvements. Comments from regular readers most welcome. Incidentally, I checked Feedburner

Read More »

Colin is now off on holiday for a fortnight so updates will be even slower than the last fortnight. There are a couple of posts in the pipeline, though, and there is likely to be a flurry of catching up activity on his return. They keys to the blog Twitter...

31st August 2012
BY Free Movement

We at Renaissance are appalled at the witch hunt of Upper Tribunal Judges who have had the audacity to allow a criminal deportation appeal. As those on the coal face know, winning a criminal deportation appeal is no walk in the park and at first instance demands a great deal...

17th July 2012
BY Shivani Jegarajah

Free Movement will be on light to non-existent blogging and Tweeting duties for the next fortnight or so owing to the birth on Monday of baby Annabel, sister to Alec. All is well but blogging is not top of FM’s to-do list at the moment.

...
13th June 2012
BY Free Movement

Yet again I missed the blog’s birthday, which was 7 March. Unbelievably (for so, so many reasons) the blog has now been going for over five years. In that time it has clocked up roughly 1,346,037 hits, 521 posts and 2,608 comments between the old wordpress.com site and the newer...

25th April 2012
BY Free Movement

Free Movement entirely retracts the article that was previously published here regarding the Chapti case and apologises to those involved. The comments in the article went considerably beyond fair, were unreasonably speculative and were misleading as to the true circumstances of the litigation. No contact was made with those responsible...

6th February 2012
BY Free Movement

Got a Kindle for Christmas? Wondering what to do with it now you’ve read the first couple of chapters of Great Expectations and then swiftly moved on to some Sherlock Holmes? You can now subscribe to Free Movement on your Kindle: while away your commute and keep yourself bang up...

24th January 2012
BY Free Movement

Regular visitors to the website will have noticed some changes over the Christmas period. A second column has been introduced on the right with Renaissance Chambers and HJT Training information, with both of which the editor is personally associated. The About the blog page has been slightly rewritten to make...

8th January 2012
BY Free Movement

The blog has been experiencing a few problems over the last few days, for which I apologise. The hosting provider moved the blog to a new server accidentally or some such, and everything went offline for about a day. Somewhere along the way some content was lost. I’ve re-inserted the...

10th December 2011
BY Free Movement

[UPDATE: now done, as you can see!] I have more or less finished building the new website and plan to switch over shortly. Before I do so I thought it might be helpful for readers to check it out and get back to me with any comments or suggestions and...

27th November 2011
BY Free Movement

There will be some changes coming on Free Movement. This has been absorbing quite a lot of my rather limited time of late, and there are several significant recent cases that I haven’t managed to flag up yet, for which I apologise. Work has been extremely busy and I have...

14th November 2011
BY Free Movement

Passing through immigration control on my return to the UK yesterday, my wife had to restrain me from taking a photograph of one of the notices that appeared on the UK visual displays at Heathrow. She wanted to get home sooner rather than later and, on reflection, I wasn’t in...

26th September 2011
BY Free Movement

I’m off on holiday and am delighted to say that I won’t be back for three weeks. I’d hoped to set a couple of posts to pop up automatically while I’m away but I’ve been too busy packing. See you in a few weeks.

...
5th September 2011
BY Free Movement

Free Movement has just hit one MILLION, er, hits. As with Dr Evil, that isn’t actually a lot of hits in today’s world, but for a small, specialist legal blog it isn’t bad going. Time for some reminiscing… The first post was on 7 March 2007, when Dr Reid was...

23rd August 2011
BY Free Movement

It is now possible to claim CPD (Continuing Professional Development) points through the blog, in conjunction with HJT Training. The poll a couple of weeks ago suggested that there is a reasonable level of interest in this, so we’ve put together two test tests, so to speak. The idea is...

3rd August 2011
BY Free Movement

Free Movement is planning to launch a scheme to allow regular readers who are barristers, solicitors or OISC advisers to claim some CPD hours by reading the blog and then answering multiple choice questions. This would be done in conjunction with HJT Training, of which the editor is a director....

14th July 2011
BY Free Movement

BAILII, the invaluable resource which provides much of the material for this blog, is under threat of closure. It seems that the Ministry of Justice has withdrawn funding, and BAILII are seeking replacement commitments from solicitors firms and barristers chambers. Some professional associations have also committed funds. I have sought...

17th June 2011
BY Free Movement

It had escaped my attention that Free Movement was four years old on 7 March 2011. The first ever post was published on that day, entitled Overstayers and illegal entrants. The Home Secretary was Dr Reid. How long ago that all feels! Since then 365 posts have been published, the...

7th April 2011
BY Free Movement

Only this morning I was making extensive use of the websites of both the First Tier and Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chambers. I’ve returned to chambers only to find that they have now seemingly vanished into thin air, with nothing but a redirect to a new looking Ministry of...

4th April 2011
BY Free Movement

After a grand total of 50 votes, 74% of which were in favour of the new look, the new look is duly adopted. The four of you who hate the new look so much you plan to set up yet further ‘free movement’ immigration blog and update sites, good riddance....

13th February 2011
BY Free Movement

As some may have noticed, I’ve made a few minor changes to the blog in the last few days. I’ve added new pages about instructing the barristers here at Renaissance Chambers, both for solicitors and members of the public, and about contributing guest posts to the blog. I’ve removed some...

8th February 2011
BY Free Movement

I gave a short presentation this morning to John Vine, the Chief Inspector of UKBA. I thought I’d share it with you. It lacks a certain something without my narration, I feel, but it at least gives you the gist. The presentation was based on ILPA submissions to the Parliamentary...

18th January 2011
BY Free Movement

Happy New Year to you all. May 2011 usher in a new era of sanity in UK immigration law and practice… WordPress, through whom this blog is hosted, have been kind enough to send me an automated email to report on 2010 – see below. I’m a little disappointed that...

4th January 2011
BY Free Movement

I have decided that I will revive Free Movement in some shape or form in the near future, although not quite yet. There is just too much going on at the moment in immigration law to abandon the blog and I’ve been really touched and amazed by the many, many...

20th November 2010
BY Free Movement

I have taken the surprisingly easy decision to wind down Free Movement. For reasons that continue to escape me and which have never been explained by John O, formerly of NCADC, he left that organisation in April 2010 and set up a website called, imaginatively enough, Free Movement. It can...

4th October 2010
BY Free Movement

It has come to my attention that Google Ads sometimes (or possibly always) show on Free Movement to those not already logged in as WordPress users – i.e. everyone except me sometimes sees Google Ads on my blog, basically. This blog is hosted mainly for free on WordPress.com. In truth...

7th September 2010
BY Free Movement
25th June 2010
BY Free Movement

I’m up late this evening with plenty more work still do to, and like many bloggers (er, all of us, I suspect) will check my blog stats in idle moments. It’s all part of the narcissistic nature of the beast. An old colleague once teased me about reaching the half...

30th April 2010
BY Free Movement

In the really very small world of UK immigration websites, someone has seen fit to set up another one called Free Movement. I’ve tried politely getting in touch but have received no response. It seems that there has been some sort of bust up at NCADC and the legendary John...

7th April 2010
BY Free Movement

That’s Twitter for you. Or so I thought… Long term and very observant readers may have noticed a brief and unsuccessful experiment with Twitter some months ago, where I thought creating an intelligent (i.e. authored rather than automatic) case law feed would be helpful. There aren’t enough cases coming out...

3rd March 2010
BY Free Movement

I’ve just visited the Immigration Museum in Melbourne, Australia. It is based in one of the city’s grand buildings, and one which is tied to the subject matter: the old Customs House. There is an enormous amount of space and the exhibits, text and interactive bits are all very well...

20th January 2010
BY Free Movement

Free Movement is leaving for warmer climes and will return embarrassingly late in January. I hope you all have a good Christmas break, and I hope UKBA doesn’t illegally remove too many detainees while their lawyers are off work. I was going to do a parody of the hideous UKBA...

23rd December 2009
BY Free Movement

As you can see, I’ve made some presentational changes to the blog over the weekend. Votes were overwhelmingly in favour of de-orangification! I’m looking for a cleaner and more professional presentation, but to retain the functionality of the old version. I’ve decided to use the Grid Focus theme by Derek...

28th November 2009
BY Free Movement

I’ve made a few slight changes to the blog I thought I ought to explain. The UKBA press department has gone mad in recent months and produces so much garbage it drowns out the other items in the news feed. I’ve therefore separated it out into its own box. I...

25th November 2009
BY Free Movement

Enough is enough. I’ve deleted the earlier Cambridge College of Learning posts and comments because I am concerned that this website was being used by various groups of alleged ex-CCL students to take money from other alleged ex-CCL students. The ‘comments’ were being used to notify meeting places and times....

24th November 2009
BY Free Movement

I’m going to be away for a while and will begin posting again at the beginning of September. In the meantime, I hope you all have a good summer!

...
8th August 2009
BY Free Movement

Following a comment on the comments system, I thought I better do a quick update. Firstly, I’ve been very busy recently and as a result have not been posting as frequently or extensively as normal. This is inevitable, I’m afraid, and given that there are so many email subscribers (115...

3rd March 2009
BY Free Movement

But lacks the energy to write anything intelligent. Par for the course, some might claim. I have however been deleting the many comments I now unfortunately receive asking for legal advice. Inevitable, I suppose. Instead of informed, witty, incisive commentary I shall content myself with some random alerts: Metock guidance...

19th January 2009
BY Free Movement

After a long day in court fighting a losing battle and with plenty of work still to do before Christmas, Free Movement is signing off until well into the New Year. I’m knackered and need a break. A number of fellow immigration lawyers have commented that it is always busy...

22nd December 2008
BY Free Movement

There are still quite a few people coming across this blog by searching for news about ‘Legacy’ cases. See previous posts on this if you are new to the subject. The news, such as it is, is that status still being granted in a lot of cases, apparently, but now...

3rd November 2008
BY Free Movement

I’ve decided to make a few changes to the blog, which I hope are improvements. Comments from regular readers most welcome. Incidentally, I checked Feedburner recently and was surprised to see there are 62 of you out there who subscribe by email. A bit of a ‘hello Mum!’ moment for...

22nd September 2008
BY Free Movement
Login
Or become a member of Free Movement today
Verified by MonsterInsights