With Brexit, expats from the UK are having to go through a lot of red tape to update their documents, such as having a passport renewal. Modifications that seemed to be a smooth process are transforming into a real nightmare for Brits who live in countries without a reciprocal social security agreement with the UK.
Passports delay
Many British expats in Thailand are facing a huge delay in having their passports renewed. Authorities in the UK are blaming a rush to travel for the summer season and new Brexit-linked problems for British travelers heading to EU countries. More than 20 British citizens are now either heading back or in the UK, trying to sort out their passports as they found it impossible to make anything happen through emails or through the British embassy in Thailand.
Adding to the pressure is the EU introducing post-Brexit rules that require British passports to have at least 3 months of validity remaining, a change that has surprised many British citizens who were unaware of the change until they wanted to travel again.
Brits abroad are having a hard time
Nicolas Whithorn, a Brit expat, has shared his disagreement on Twitter last year as the problem with passport renewal has been constant. “At this rate, we, British living abroad will soon be required to demonstrate our “Britishness” to be allowed into the UK or to renew our passports.”
Adam Mark, a British citizen living abroad, is in the process of moving back to the UK with his two children; both have British passports. However, his wife is Portuguese, so they are facing more challenges with Brexit. “Her visa to the UK is costing around 3,700k pounds and takes 3 to 5 months to process. It's a farce. The money-making scheme,” he posted on Twitter.
A British couple currently living in Australia has been told how they will probably have to cancel their wedding in the UK because of continued delays at the Passport Office. They would also have to allow 13 weeks for their baby's British passport to arrive.
Already, thousands of families face delayed or canceled holidays in the Northern Hemisphere summer. British MPs, contacted by hapless constituents, are describing the situation as an “absolute shambles”.
The British Home office acknowledges that up to 5 million people have faced passport delays. “We urge people who need a new passport to apply for one as soon as possible. The vast majority of all passport applications are being dealt with well within 10 weeks.”
British pensions
Pensioners are urging the UK Government to “end this injustice” as an estimated half a million Britons abroad are unable to claim their state-supported retirement. Some 492,000 expats are living abroad in countries without a reciprocal social security agreement with the UK. As a result, state pensioners are missing out on over £5,600 this year despite a hike in pension payments.
State pensions have risen, but some elderly Brits overseas still don't receive inflation increases to their pension. George Cunningham, an internationalist, Chair Lib Dems Abroad and UK parliamentary candidate, expressed his own view on his Twitter account about pensions. “It's extremely unfair for British pensioners living overseas who do not have reciprocal agreement to have frozen pensions. It's about half a million Brits living abroad who have this particular problem.”
Although the UK is welcoming the rise in national pensions, Brit expats are hugely disappointed that the UK Government is continuing to treat British citizens living in an arbitrary list of countries differently. For these expats, the UK Government could choose to end this policy but instead continues to treat them, pensioners across the world, unequally, according to experts, despite the contributions they have made to the UK.
