If you thought the Tories had stopped accusing British citizens of being foreign, think again
Stevie Leishman [Image: Stevie Leishman (from his Facebook page)].
He was therefore surprised and shocked when, after applying for Universal Credit, he received the following letter from the Department for Work and Pensions:
It says: “We are writing to tell you that you have not passed the right to reside and habitual residence test.
“Although, as a British citizen, you have the right of abode in the United Kingdom (UK), you claimed Universal Credit shortly after you re-entered the country, which is not an appreciable period of time. You have, therefore not demonstrated that you are habitually resident in the UK.
“This means that you are a person who must be treated as not in Great Britain. Therefore, you do not have any entitlement to Universal Credit at this time.
“If your circumstances change, you can make a new claim to Universal Credit.”
What does this pen-pusher mean by “you are a person who must be treated as not in Great Britain”? Where the blazes is he, then?
And if he’s not in Great Britain, may Scottish Nationalists use this as a justification for claiming that the UK government has ended Scotland’s membership of the United Kingdom?
What a thing that would be!
On his Facebook page, Mr Leishman wrote: “Scottish lad goes backpacking for 7 weeks and then returns to the UK the government treat him as a foreign national. Ineligible for any benefits a refugee in his own country.”
This comment from Mark Andrews on the Supporting Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell FB page is also worth seeing: “British lad goes backpacking abroad, comes home to the UK and is told that he is essentially a stateless person with no rights. Seriously WTF?
“Is this part of Theresa May’s hostile environment again for illegal immigrants? Only in this case the Scottish young man concerned is born and bred British!
“Has the prime minister and the Conservative Part ‘government’ gone stark raving mad? What … planet are they on?”
It is clearly part of the “hostile environment” policy, even though it isn’t being administrated by the Home Office.
Other examples quoted in the comment thread under Mr Andrews’s post include a homeless person who was excluded for spending four months abroad picking fruit – after 16 years in the British Army, and a woman who left her abusive husband in Dubai and fled to the UK.
It seems if anyone has been out of the UK for two consecutive weeks in two years, they may be defined as a foreigner and denied benefit.
If anything, this is worse than the Windrush scandal.
That travesty concerned people who were born abroad but had the right to stay in the UK.
This targets people who have always been UK citizens.
And Theresa May is at the heart of it. How many times do we have to hear these accounts before she – and her government – are removed?
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So Mr. Leishman has “not passed the right to reside, etc.) He’s done nothing wrong and there’s no indication as to why he has been refused UC or anything else. Let’s hope Ms. Markle isn’t handed a letter like Mr Leishman’s on her walk down the aisle. Now she definitely is a foreign national.
Is this a roundabout way of stopping ordinary folk from going abroad, leaving the rich to be the only ones to go on ‘their grand tours ‘?
He’s considered resident for tax purposes unless he is out of the country for all but 16 days, or 46 if he was previously long term non-resident (which he clearly is not). This is a disgrace.
I’m screwed then, emigrated to North America, lived there for 14 years, came back, but was lucky enough to fall into retirement as I hit 65 (No UC Claim required). What the hell is wrong with people today who empower these kind of policies by voting the “Nasty Party” back into power?
This is very worrying as it proves once and for all that a major motovating factor of Universal Credit is zero social mobility and to put people in their place.
It’s so beaurocratic that to avoid all the red tape and fear of saying/doing the wrong thing people are even refusing to move house.
The many years I spent working abroad for 1 year at a time would now deem me a foreign national and I’m now worried if it will affect my future pension.
Which MSM journo has the ba*** to go digging into the history of the Tories to find out which of THEM has leave to stay in the UK
The dwp will use any form of fiction to refuse any benefits
Tories will never stop being nasty. They will just find other ways to spread their evil nastiness.
I had this happen to me – they told me “You haven’t lived in the UK recently, you’re not a permanent resident living in the UK. How do we know you won’t just leave the country?”. The answer “Because I’m booked in to the local hospital to undergo chemotherapy for the next 48 weeks .” wasn’t convincing enough for them and I was denied any benefit. However, when I found a job a few weeks later, they were convinced enough that I would stay to charge me income tax, NI, council tax, etc
Ethnic cleansing take to the nth degree what next concentration camps slavery is here now, is this the start of the Fourth Reich
Went away for 3 weeks last year. Makes me worried. .
The same happened to me when I returned from Holland.The Habitual Residence test was brought in under Blair’s watch.