Post Brexit checks to be tougher

Downing Street has recently announced that EU citizens entering Britain after the 31st October Brexit deadline will face “tougher criminality rules”, as part of their declaration that free movement would end as soon as the UK leaves the European Union.

This has led to conjecture that that anyone wanting to enter the UK after the deadline might be refused entry if they have a criminal record. The Prime Minister has said that “democratically controlled” immigration will be implemented, which means that criminal records screening will likely be part of the checks involved in being granted the right to remain. However, the Prime Minister has stated “that does not mean that we are going to stop anybody coming into this country.”

This could also affect EU nationals currently living in the UK, and critics warn that it could lead to another Windrush scandal, where people who came to the UK from the Caribbean between 1948 and 1971 and made their lives here, were deported or refused entry after visiting their place of birth, many years later.

The government department has said that EU citizens living in the UK under settled status will not be barred from re-entering the UK, and that the EU Settlement Scheme will remain open to those already living in the UK until December 2020. There are currently three million EU citizens living in the UK and only an estimated one million of them have secured settled status.

A government spokeswoman has said that details of changes to immigration issues are currently being developed ahead of the deadline. The changes will be introduced along with a new European Temporary Leave to Remain scheme (Euro TLR), which allows citizens of EEA and Switzerland and their close family members who move to the UK after October 31st and up to the deadline of 31st December 2020 to be granted a 36-month temporary immigration status.

Further measures which will be introduced include removing the blue EU customs channel, requiring all travellers to pass through either the red or green channel to make customs declarations, introducing blue passports later this year and removing the rights to permanent residence under retained EU law for those who arrive after Brexit.