Returning British nationals who made a home in the EU with foreign spouses are being treated appallingly
In Franz Kafka’s The Trial, a blameless citizen wakes up one day to find himself under suspicion for no good reason. It was, presumably, never the intention of the architects of Brexit to inflict a similar kind of psychological pressure on British citizens living abroad with non-UK spouses. But bureaucratic indifference and a signal lack of compassion are turning hitherto ordinary lives upside down in Kafkaesque fashion.
At the weekend, it was reported that a British woman needing to return to the UK with her French partner had been forced to come without him, much to the distress of their six-year-old son, who wants to know when he will see his father again. Before Brexit, of course, a family move such as this would have been straightforward. But in yet another example of performative cruelty when it comes to Britain’s borders, the Home Office has introduced a complex family permit to cover such cases. Thus, through no fault of their own, returning Britons who fell in love and settled down abroad are struggling to prove the genuine nature of their claim to have jointly resided with their partner in the EU.