It has become fashionable for government ministers to refer to “bespoke” humanitarian schemes and such like, referring to programmes like those for Ukrainians and Hong
Today marks the 75th anniversary of the disembarking of the passengers on board the ship the HMT Empire Windrush at Tilbury docks on 22 June
The common travel area enables passport-free and legal travel between the United Kingdom (including Northern Ireland), the Republic of Ireland, the Isle of Man and
Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick today announced that the government was dropping its “differentiated status” approach to refugees, introduced less than one year ago as the
This month Sonia and I start with the Big Free Movement News (spoiler: Sonia is joining the team as the new Editor) and then cover
Sunak gave a major speech this morning claiming that his “Stop The Boats” plan is working. Is it? There are some signs of success but
The latest quarterly immigration statistics were published today. Most of the media focus is on net migration and the Office of National Statistics ONS report.
Some big news at Free Movement. Two bits of big news, in fact. New Editor Firstly, I am delighted to announce that Sonia Lenegan is
This month we talk more about the Illegal Migration Bill and its potential consequences, the right way to go about tackling the asylum backlog, Colin’s
The immigration rules are full of harsh general rules accompanied by potential exceptions. These exceptions require a subjective judgment to be made and they make
It has become fashionable for government ministers to refer to “bespoke” humanitarian schemes and such like, referring to programmes like those for Ukrainians and Hong Kongers. The illusory scheme for Afghans was once trumpeted as a “bespoke” scheme as well, but it has effectively been mothballed and some of those...
Today marks the 75th anniversary of the disembarking of the passengers on board the ship the HMT Empire Windrush at Tilbury docks on 22 June 1948. Even now, five years after the Windrush scandal broke, many well-informed and well-intentioned journalists, writers and policy-makers do not really grasp the true legal...
The common travel area enables passport-free and legal travel between the United Kingdom (including Northern Ireland), the Republic of Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands for British and Irish citizens and migrants with lawful status. Once a person is within the common travel area, there are no...
Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick today announced that the government was dropping its “differentiated status” approach to refugees, introduced less than one year ago as the centrepiece of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022. The policy was to put refugees who arrived without prior permission on a ten year route to...
The latest quarterly immigration statistics were published today. Most of the media focus is on net migration and the Office of National Statistics ONS report. Net migration turned out to be around 600,000 rather than the 700,000 or more that some had predicted. Here, though, we’re going to focus on...
Some big news at Free Movement. Two bits of big news, in fact. New Editor Firstly, I am delighted to announce that Sonia Lenegan is joining Free Movement as the new Editor in August. She will be replacing me, although I’ll still be lurking in the background and contributing from...
This month we talk more about the Illegal Migration Bill and its potential consequences, the right way to go about tackling the asylum backlog, Colin’s suggestion of a new British Citizenship Act, the resumption of hostile environment bank account closures, we run through a load of cases and end by...
The immigration rules are full of harsh general rules accompanied by potential exceptions. These exceptions require a subjective judgment to be made and they make the rules complex. They also manufacture risk for applicants, making the outcome of immigration applications hard to predict. Unpredictability, combined with the high financial and...
