What they Can Claim

I write this because I now read that the British government is to give out 220,000 British passports to migrants this year. In the first three months of 2009, 54,615 citizenship applications were approved, up 57% for the same period last year.

At that rate, the number receiving passports - and with them the right to full benefits - this year will smash the record of 164,540 set in 2007.

Last year the total was 129,310, and when Labour came to power in 1997, just 37,010 people were given citizenship. It means approvals have rocketed by almost 500 per cent under the current Government.

I have no problem with immigrants although I wonder where they are going to put them all as GB is after all an island and there is only so much room.

I am British and can trace my lineage back a couple of hundred years on my military father’s English side. My Austrian mother automatically became British upon marriage because that is what happened when a Brit married ‘an alien’ at the end of WW11. Although born in Austria, I was born so to speak, ‘under the British Flag’ because Austria was ‘occupied’. I have and always have had a British passport. Both my children were born in Britain and carry British passports. It just so happened that I married a Trinidadian who did not want a British passport (he got that right!). We lived between West Africa and London and my husband had UK residency because the American company he worked for, had offices in the UK as well as virtually every other country in the world. We owned two homes, the children went to British schools and we paid our British taxes.

I am cross because my British daughter is not entitled to a British university education because through no fault of her own, she has lived outside of the United Kingdom for more than three years. In short she would be treated as an 'overseas student' instead of a 'home student' which in her case would mean a difference in fees of approximately GBP13,000 - 16,000. Add to that living accommodation, learning resources, food etc... etc...

My daughter, undeterred is doing her Law Degree at The University of London through an external programme. It is still expensive but nothing like the fees we would have to pay if she were living in London.

Better we give up our heritage, our British passports, claim political asylum in the UK and go with the flow.

My father who fought for King and country and then Queen and country must be spinning in his grave whilst I spit blood and wonder at how this Labour government managed to turn a once great country into the laughing stock of the world.