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BREXIT

EUROPEAN UNION

‘A Swedish passport means more than a British one now’

It is now exactly a week since the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. With that in mind, The Local spoke to British expats in Sweden on how they feel about the outcome of the vote, seven days later.

'A Swedish passport means more than a British one now'
A Swedish passport. Photo: Jessica Gow/TT

“The xenophobia and racism that has emerged since the vote is scary,” says Nazia Hussain, a Brit who works in Skellefteå, northern Sweden.

“I went back over to England because I’m graduating from university and was very cautious about going on public transport now. I’ll only drive. My husband says I’m paranoid but I just want to protect myself,” Hussain added.

Nazia says that after the Leave vote she now feels safer back in her adopted home of Sweden, and has started to look into the possibility of becoming a Swedish citizen.

“If I had a choice, I’d sell my property in the UK and go back to Sweden and stay there, but my mother isn’t very well. It’s a tough situation to be in. But if I had a choice I’d cut all ties with England now,” she said.

“I’ve been in Sweden for almost three years. I want to find out whether I can get Swedish citizenship. To me, the British passport is now worthless, and I don’t mean that in a nasty way. If you can’t use it in Europe anymore, what use is it? I won’t give it up, I probably want dual citizenship, but I think the Swedish passport is worth more now.”

Andrew Oldfield, another Brit that The Local spoke to, said he anticipated passport problems before the referendum even took place.

“I applied for Swedish citizenship two years before the referendum. The reason I did it is because I knew they were having a vote, and I thought there was a big risk Britain would vote to leave,” he explains.

“I’m also a British citizen with a British passport, but I wasn’t eligible to vote as I’ve been out of the UK for too long. My compatriots have voted me out of where I live, basically, which is a bit of a weird feeling.

Oldfield thinks that the way that both Britain and the EU have reacted in the aftermath of the vote leaves a lot to be desired.

“People aren’t looking for positive options, either at EU level or in Britain. Why can’t people sit down and think about the best options going forward? There are concerns about the EU in a lot of countries. Why can’t that be taken on board in some way so there is a way forward on how the EU is being run, rather than seeing it as a black and white?”

Craig Neilson, a Glasgow native living in Stockholm, says he still isn’t sure many Brits know exactly what they voted for.

“For me the biggest question is still why did we vote to leave? What was it that made them come to that decision? It seems like most people didn’t really know what they were voting for.”

His main worry in the aftermath of the Leave vote is how it could affect his family situation.

“I’m concerned as I have a family here in Sweden. I’m not married, but I have two kids,” he says, though he hasn't gone as far as applying for Swedish citizenship. 

“I don’t feel like I have to do anything drastic at the moment. It might take a couple of years. Hopefully within the next few months we’ll have an idea if anything will change. If Scotland’s situation will change.”

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IMMIGRATION

More than 20 British citizens ‘absconded’ after orders to leave Sweden

More than 20 British citizens are feared to be living underground in Sweden, after failing to secure their residency following the UK leaving the European Union, Swedish border police have told The Local.

More than 20 British citizens 'absconded' after orders to leave Sweden

According to Swedish police statistics, there are currently 38 cases open regarding UK citizens with an expulsion order, of which 24 are cases that have been passed to the police by the Migration Agency after the person’s applications for residency received their final rejection. 

“Twenty two persons from this category have absconded, meaning they are avoiding the authorities,” Irene Sokolow, a police press spokesperson, told The Local, adding that in the other two cases, the police know for certain that the person remains in the country.

Almost 4,000 British nationals have been issued orders to leave by EU and Schengen area countries since Brexit, with Sweden responsible for about 1,185 of that number. 

Brits nonetheless represent less than a tenth of the 36,000 people given expulsion orders in Sweden from the start of 2021 until the end of 2023, according to Eurostat numbers collated by the Europaportalen website, of whom about 24,000 are known to have left the country. 

Currently, an expulsion order from Sweden expires after four years, something Sweden’s Migration Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said last month should be changed as it creates an incentive for those ordered to leave to go into hiding and then reapply for residency after four years. 

“This of course contributes to the fact that many individuals go underground, which as a result makes return efforts more difficult and less efficient,” she said after receiving the recommentations of a government inquiry

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