When I decided to move back to Britain I had to make
sure my husband could come too. If he could not have come, I would have stayed
in Russia. Now some years later it may finally be possible for him to obtain a
British passport. It seems such a little thing, a small maroon booklet that
sits in a draw. I wonder how many people reading this quite realise how
difficult it is to obtain.
If I had lived in France in the 1930s, met and
married someone there, it would have been a quite simple matter to bring my husband
to the UK. It would simply have been my right. But eighty years later it’s an
altogether more complex story.
Firstly it was necessary for me to have a job. It
wasn’t enough that both of us were well qualified and had the potential to look
after ourselves without state support. It wasn’t enough also to just have any
job. I had to have a job paying above a certain amount per annum. You try
looking for such a job while you are in Russia. It’s not a straightforward
matter to go to an interview for instance.
I was fortunate. I had some contacts. I had some
help. I got a job. But even then the process of applying for a visa was both
nerve-wracking and expensive. We had to go to the British embassy in Moscow. We
would have had to travel there even if we had lived in Vladivostok. There was a
process of taking biometric information. There were questions to be answered.
There was a period of waiting and finally we obtained the visa. It cost over a
thousand pounds. At every stage in the game you pay over a thousand pounds.
After a time living here, we applied for indefinite
leave to remain. To obtain this you have to pass a test. This test is called
“Life in the UK”. What it involves is obtaining a booklet called “Life in the
UK” studying it and then doing an exam. I couldn’t pass the “Life in the UK”
test without reading the booklet. I would be surprised if one in a thousand
British citizens could. It contains all sorts of obscure and irrelevant
questions that no-one could reasonably be expected to know. Do you know for
instance when forced marriage protection was introduced into Scotland, or how
many local authorities there are in London? Passing this test was both tedious
and stressful for my husband. We then had to fill in another detailed form, pay
another thousand pounds and travel to Glasgow to obtain my husband’s leave to
remain.
Most British citizens are completely unaware of how
useful a British passport is. It enables us to travel almost anywhere. A
Russian passport is rather less useful. Whenever we wanted to go on holiday, my
husband would need a visa, which frequently required travelling to Edinburgh or
sometimes even to London. Moreover if we ever decided to live abroad again,
after a time, my husband would lose his leave to remain in the UK. This would
even happen if Scotland were to become independent.
There was therefore an
incentive for us to obtain a British passport for my husband.
To obtain a British passport you first have to pass
an English language test. Luckily my husband was chosen while a child to be
part of a special language learning programme. The Soviet Union needed some
citizens who could speak English to a near native standard. In some ways he
speaks better English than I do. Most people in Scotland think he is British,
only they can’t quite work out where he’s from. The odd vowel doesn’t sound
quite right. We were very lucky indeed that his English is as good as it is, otherwise
he would not have passed the test. The standard required is such that you would
not expect an adult learning from scratch to be able to reach it.
It is obvious from the job that my husband does,
that he speaks fluent English. He has certificates to prove it also. But none
of this was good enough. There was no avoiding the test, which, once more, cost
rather a lot of money. The whole process of obtaining a British passport in the
end costs many thousands of pounds.
Do I resent that we have had to pay so much and
overcome so many challenges. It is only human nature to resent difficulties and
to not like paying money. But I understand it. I am in favour of immigration.
How could I not be when my husband is an immigrant? I too have been an
immigrant. Who knows I may be one again. I have a dream of living somewhere
warm and cheap. But although I’m obviously in favour of immigration I also
accept that it can neither be unlimited nor uncontrolled.
The reality is that the UK already has strict
controls on immigration. Every time my husband enters the UK he has to show his
thumb-print. The journey he has been on to obtain British citizenship has been
difficult and expensive. Russians cannot come to the UK without limitation, nor
is immigration from Russia uncontrolled.
Why then is there is a perception that immigration
into the UK is unlimited and uncontrolled? The reason is this. The rules and
regulations that apply to Russians and others who want to come to the UK legally
do not apply to those who wish to come here illegally.
Practically speaking anyone who arrives in the UK by
whatever means whether legally or illegally can remain here. If someone arrives
on a tourist visa and chooses to stay beyond the date on the visa, there is
almost no chance that they will ever leave. If someone arrives on the back of a
lorry they too will get to stay. The number of people who are deported for
failing to follow the rules is vanishingly small. On the other hand if at any
stage of my husband’s long journey, he had failed one of the tests or even made
a mistake on a form, he would have been denied entry or ceased to have the
right to live here. This situation which rewards those who arrive illegally
while being strict with those who arrive legally is, of course, grotesquely
unfair.
So long as we remain in the EU we cannot legally
limit immigration from EU countries. I think, on the whole, this is a good
thing. We have benefited massively economically from people coming to live and
work here from Eastern Europe in particular. But we can limit immigration from anywhere
other than the EU, by applying exactly the same rules that applied to my
husband. Why allow some people to break the rules, while forcing others to
conform to them?
If my Russian relatives want to visit the UK, they
have to show that they have a relatively large income, own property and have a
good job. The condition for the possibility of a Russian visiting the UK is a
level of income that few in the rest of the world could reach. Strangely
however the rules that apply to Russians don’t appear to apply to anyone from
the rest of the world. People from countries far poorer than Russia, who don’t
have good jobs and don’t have property, can still obtain visas to come to the UK.
Why be strict with the one while being lax with the other?
While immigration from the EU has been beneficial to
the UK, this obviously depends on immigration to the EU being limited and
controlled. This is because someone who has the right to live in and work in,
for instance, Germany will eventually have the right to live and work in
Britain. Uncontrolled immigration into Germany therefore amounts to
uncontrolled immigration into the UK.
At present we are in the absurd situation where some
people can enter the European Union without visas in an unlimited and
uncontrolled fashion, while others are forced to jump through ever more complex
and expensive hoops. It’s like trying to stem the flow of water from bucket by
putting your finger on one tiny hole while the bucket is ruptured in a dozen
other places. Why be strict with those who wish to come to the EU legally while
at the same time being lax with those who don’t?
The concept of having a border, the concept even of
having a country implies that immigration is neither unlimited nor
uncontrolled. If you wish to do away with all borders, by all means argue for
that, but accept that there will be consequences and it is unlikely that most
voters will agree with you. In the meantime, if we are to have countries, we
require that there is a common culture and a common identity. It’s only by
putting limits on immigration that we can absorb new arrivals, make them feel
welcome and a part of our country. It needs time to melt down difference in the
melting pot. This is needed if we are all to live together in harmony. I
understand therefore why the UK Government requires people like my husband to
perform tests and fill out forms. I understand why the process is strict and
demanding. What I don’t understand is that it only applies to those who chose
to come to Britain legally. That is both unfair and pointless.
If everyone arriving in Britain from outside the EU
were treated as strictly as my husband, the UK Government could achieve its goals
with regard to limiting immigration with ease. The rules already exist, but
they quite simply are not applied in a fair way. Why discriminate against
Russians, or rather why discriminate against those who want to come here
legally?
British citizenship is something I hugely value. It
was something I was born with, but I don’t take it for granted. It gives me
rights and I also have responsibilities. We should welcome those who choose to
take on our identity. Above all the British identity should unify everyone in
the UK no matter where we are from. It might be the only thing we have in
common. Don’t reject it therefore. But just as my husband accepts that his
family, his friends and his fellow Russian citizens cannot all come here, so
too must all of us place limits on our kindness. Not everyone can come to
Britain, not even all of those who have a well-founded reason to do so.
