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BREXIT

Sweden to UK: Increased risk of no-deal Brexit ‘serious’

Sweden's Europe Minister has told the new UK government that it is "serious" that its tougher position on Brexit has boosted the risk of the UK leaving the EU without an agreement.

Sweden to UK: Increased risk of no-deal Brexit 'serious'
Sweden's European Union minister Hans Dahlgren at an earlier meeting. Photo: Stina Stjernkvist/TT
In a bilateral meeting in Stockholm, Hans Dahlgren told Stephen Barclay, the UK's Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, that Sweden was concerned by the new UK government's redoubled determination to leave the European Union on October 31st. 
 
“It is serious that the risk of a hard Brexit has increased,” Dahlgren told The Local was the message he had conveyed to Barclay at the meeting, held on Friday afternoon at government offices. 
 
“As you know, the British government has decided they are going to leave the EU on October 31st, deal or no deal, while we are insisting it is best for all parties concerned that we have orderly exit and that they leave with a deal.” 
 
Dahlgren said that Barclay had in turn reiterated the UK's tough new position at the meeting. 
 
“He said that this is going to happen. He said that unless there is an agreement, there is going to be a hard Brexit on October 31st.”
 
In interviews with Swedish media, Dahlgren said that Barclay had been very clear that the new government opposed the so-called “back-stop” arrangement guaranteeing that there would be no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. 
 
Stephen Barclay arriving at 10 Downing Street in London after Boris Johnson's appointment as PM. Photo: Matt Dunham/AP
 
A spokesperson for the British embassy in Stockholm said that Barclay and Dahlgren had also discussed safeguarding the rights of British citizens living in Sweden, and those of Swedes living in the UK. 
 
“During his meeting with Minister for EU Affairs, Hans Dahlgren, the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU discussed the protection of citizens' rights – both for British citizens living in Sweden, and for Swedish citizens living in the UK,” the spokesperson said. “They discussed how we can reach an agreement that works for everybody.“
 
But Dahlgren told The Local that the two sides had only “touched upon that briefly”. 
 
“As you know, we have in Sweden taken decisions which will allow British citizens living in Sweden to continue to live here with a grace period of one year also after a hard Brexit, and we know that the new British government is planning similar decisions for Swedes and other European citizens who now live in the UK,” he said. 
 
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However, he said that it remained unclear how the new British government would treat Swedish citizens who wanted to move to the UK for work after October 31st.
 
“The previous British government had made some openings for people coming to the UK after Brexit, and those statements have not yet been endorsed by the new government,” he said.  
 
He told The Local that he had emphasized to Barclay the importance of coming to a quick decision on this. “First of all, we want to get information as soon as possible,” he said. 
 
Dahlgren said he did not have any more information on how Sweden planned to treat British citizens living in Sweden once the one-year grace period was over.  
 
“We have done what we need to do for those who are in Sweden now. What will happen to those who come here after the exit, I cannot comment on,” he added.
 
The UK has in the past been criticized for seeking to negotiate bilaterally with national governments over its departure from the European Union, but Dahlgren said that Barclay had not attempted to ask Sweden for support in Brussels. 
 
“I think he understands that we are not as Sweden negotiating with the United Kingdom. It is the EU who is negotiating with the United Kingdom, though Mr Barnier,” he said. “He understands also that he cannot negotiate with the individual member states.”

Member comments

  1. The people of the UK do NOT know the consequences of leaving the EU. They only see one thing, too many Polish in the UK. They don’t think about all the people from living abroad who will now be forced out.

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BREXIT

British actor married to Swedish pop star gives up post-Brexit fight to stay in Sweden

Former Bollywood actor Kenny Solomons' imminent return to the UK after failing to get post-Brexit residency has made national news in Sweden thanks to his marriage to the singer from the band Alcazar. He tells The Local why he's leaving.

British actor married to Swedish pop star gives up post-Brexit fight to stay in Sweden

The QX gala – Sweden’s glitzy, televised celebration of gay culture – is not the first place a man in his 20s would go to find a future wife. 

But that’s what happened to British actor Kenny Solomons.

Solomons, now 37, was already a well-known face in Sweden after playing the superhero in adverts for the internet provider Bredbandsbolaget. He was there to give out an award. Tess Merkel, singer for the nu-disco band Alcazar – one of Sweden’s most successful ever groups – was there to receive one.

“It was utterly insane,” Solomons remembers. “I had had a few drinks and then I woke up the next day in this typical Swedish apartment with kids’ toys everywhere. I was like, ‘what the fuck is going on?'”

“The kids were away with their dad, and Tess went off to work the next day and she left a note – as a joke – on the kitchen table that said ‘sorry I left you, but I took off to plan our wedding’. I thought it was a one-night stand. I was 25 years old and she was 17 years older. I didn’t expect to be married.”

The actor Kenny Solomons (right) arrives at the QX Gala in 2016. Photo: Anders Wiklund/TT

But in 2015 they got engaged and then in 2017, they married in the Indian holiday paradise of Goa, making it legal for Sweden with a ceremony in Stockholm City Hall the next year. 

By then, Solomons was so deeply embedded in Stockholm’s celebrity whirl that everything from the Brexit referendum to the deadline for post-Brexit residency had more or less passed him by. It was only when he took a trip to Greece in the summer of 2022, his first international trip since the pandemic broke out, that he realised the mistake he had made. 

“We flew back through Serbia, which is outside the European Union, so as we were coming in through the Swedish border, they said ‘hey, you do realise that you’re going to need to send in a whole load of information’, and I was completely shocked. I had no idea. I mean, to some people, I might sound like an absolute moron, but I just wasn’t aware of it.” 

In some ways his ignorance was unsurprising, given the Swedish authorities’ decision not to contact British citizens directly, even digitally, to inform them of the need to apply for post-Brexit residency by the end of 2021, although there was information published online.

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Unlike many Brits in Sweden, Solomons was at that point completely integrated, living in the upmarket Stockholm district of Hammarby Sjöstad, and speaking almost exclusively Swedish.   

“It wasn’t originally the plan to do everything in Swedish. It was after I started working and running a business here, that it just sort of kicked in,” he remembers. “After three or four years, I suddenly was like, ‘ah, OK, I’m speaking Swedish. My mother would be very proud, that me, a dyslexic boy from Southend-on-Sea in Essex, could speak even one word in another language!”

Because he only hung out with Swedes and rarely met other Brits, he had simply not heard about the Brexit deadline. 

“All of my friends are in the industry. I socialise among those who also work as artists here in Sweden,” he explains. “When you work as an entrepreneur or an artist, there is nobody to give you that little nudge and say, ‘hey, there is a thing going on called Brexit and it’s going to affect your status here in Sweden’. I had absolutely no idea that it would affect me in this way, and would still be affecting me four years on.”

Looking back, he remembers spending much of 2020 and 2021 desperately trying and eventually failing to save his chain of barbershops and hair-replacement therapy centres from bankruptcy due to the pandemic.

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When he did apply for post-Brexit residency – nearly a year late – he was rejected as the Migration Agency does not treat ignorance as “reasonable grounds” for missing the deadline. He appealed the decision to the Migration Court, but this month decided he had had enough of waiting, given that rejection was “inevitable”. 

“It’s now 19 months since I sent in my appeal to the Migration Court, and the pressure of not knowing, every day, and the pressure of having to say ‘no’ to career opportunities outside of Europe, and the pressure of not knowing with 100 percent certainty that I can live and work in Sweden in the long run was just affecting my health, and my mental health as well,” he says.

“I hit the wall, was suffering with anxiety, and was incredibly unhappy. So I made the decision.” 

He’s now going to return to the UK and apply for spousal reunion with Merkel. As he has no young children of his own, there is little chance of getting granted the right to do this from within Sweden.

Since he left the UK as a young man, his mother has died, and his 60-year-old father has left their childhood home in Essex and moved to Chester on the other side of England, somewhere he has never been. 

“I guess I’ll go and sleep on his couch,” he says. “I can moan and be upset and say all these awful things. But I have my health and I have a place to go. There are people in a similar situation that don’t have any connections or ties left in the UK any longer, so I’m very grateful to at least have a couch to crash on while I figure out this next step.” 

His father got married in the middle of June, and Solomon’s plan is to return for the wedding party on August 24th, handing in his application for spousal reunion in Sweden within days of arrival. He has no idea if he will then have to wait six months, or two years, before he is granted the right to live again in Sweden.  

“My wife and I, we really always try to make the best out of a bad situation, whatever it is, so when I leave Sweden and start my process from my dad’s I want to continue to be able to give back to this country.” 

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His next plan is to return to India, where he spent several years before coming to Sweden working as an actor in Bollywood films. 

“You’re gonna think I’m completely nuts. I want to fly to the most northern part of India and run from North India to South India, the whole way, and raise money for Läkare Utan Gränser [the Swedish arm of the global medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)].” 

He says that one of the silver linings to his situation is that as someone involved in Swedish showbusiness, his case has received media coverage, unlike hundreds of other British citizens who have been victims of Sweden’s strict application of the EU Withdrawal Agreement. 

“It’s a very, very great luxury and something I don’t take for granted that I have a platform that can be used for to spread my thoughts and my opinions,” he said, adding that he has also enjoyed sharing information with and trying to help other British people in the same situation. 

Tess Merkel’s band Alcazar performed at the Eurovision Grand Final in Malmö in 2024. Photo: Jessica Gow/TT

Now he’s looking forward to returning back to the UK, where family and friends were in May blown away by the surprise appearance of Merkel and the rest of Alcazar at the Eurovision Grand Final. 

“I had to keep it a secret from my family in England. I couldn’t tell anybody because Alcazar had written a contract with Eurovision,” he remembers. “So my family didn’t know, and they were just shocked when they came on. They Facetimed me just afterwards and said, ‘they really made fun of Alcazar. I felt really sorry for them’.”

But Alcazar, he said, had no issues with being made the butt of a joke about their ‘reunion’ not quite being the hoped-for Abba appearance. The are, he says, “a playful band”. 

“She is that person in real life. She’s absolutely fantastic. She’s an absolute gem. She’s my best friend,” he said of Merkel. “She might say to you, ‘it will be quite nice to have a bit of a break from Kenny. He’s a pain in the ass’. But taking this step is like losing my right hand, because we are so co-dependent on each other – in all the best ways.” 

Membership+ subscribers can listen to the full interview with Kenny Solomons in the Sweden in Focus Extra podcast, which will be available from Wednesday, June 26th.   

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