IF, a couple of years ago, someone told me that I’d be searching the Google Play Store for an app with the keywords “Brexit”, “EU Citizen” and “Settled Status”, I would have smiled nervously, nodded, and slowly walked away from your raving lunacy. But here we are, in these Brexit times, and normality is another one of those luxuries the UK will have to rely on imports for, because we only produce madness at the moment.
With my Portuguese passport in hand, I open the app. I’m treated to a few tutorial slides, before being asked to start by scanning my passport. This part worked out well. I was then asked to stand in a well-lit room, as a couple of pictures need to be taken. This step failed. Stupid little me, how dare I not live in a perfectly lit mansion, with all the necessary photographic conditions!?
A couple of failed attempts and the app ended up skipping that step, telling me that the Home Office might get in touch later to sort this out. I’m already at fault. Great.
I was then asked to confirm some personal details and to answer a couple of questions about your criminal record, which made me wonder if some UK Government members would pass this step. Of course they would, they operate in loopholes.
Laws are meant for us, common mortals, to follow, not Her Majesty’s Ministers.
Time to provide my National Insurance number, as through this they could check if I have been residing in the UK recently. Would it surprise you if I revealed that it failed again?
Because it did. So I had to provide a bunch of Council Tax letters, going all the way back to 2015, the time when I first moved to Scotland.
Lastly, I had to pay the ransom of £65 in order to proceed with the application. I did. I am lucky because I can afford to do so. Other won’t be, but that won’t make much of a difference – the Tories only care about the Haves, never the Have Nots.
That’s it – I have finished my application for pre-Settled Status.
I have paid for the luxury of becoming a third-class citizen with diminished rights when the UK leaves the European Union.
When my fiancé gets home, after a day’s work as a dentist where he sees dozens of NHS patients each day, he too will enjoy this experience – on my phone, though, because he’s got the wrong brand, according to the UK Government, and pay a further £65 to the Home Office, bringing the total to £130. Oh and thank goodness we are gay – larger families with kids will pay much more than this.
[As I finished writing this, I’ve discovered that the £65 application fee has been waived. I’ll now have to get in touch with the Home Office in order to get my money back – I’m so looking forward to further bureaucratic inefficiencies.]
READ MORE: Major win for SNP as May scraps £65 fee for EU nationals
If the Brexit process has taught me anything, is that I can’t expect much from the UK these days. As an immigrant, I am nothing but a pawn in their political rhetoric.
No matter who sits on the Government benches, both Tories and Labour have been only looking after their electoral success, and if that demands the sacrifice of EU migrants on the altar of xenophobia, so be it.
I cannot wait to receive the confirmation of my application.
It will only serve to ignite even more fiercely my drive to see Scotland rid of this belittling Union, to fight for an independent country where we value New and Old Scots alike, where Scottishness is not defined by where you come from, but where you end up.
Thank you, UK Government – you’re making the prospect of Scottish independence more appetising by the day.
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