The Government has finally agreed to change family reunion for these categories of people.
So it seems like good news for people of Northern Ireland.
Interestingly the Government says it will not discriminate between people who identify as British or Irish.
It follows that one part of the UK will essentially have different rules to other part of the UK. Once set of British Citizen will have more rights than others.
Very interesting.
I must qualify this by saying that this change is dependent on whether the Stormont parties sign the proposed agreement.The New Decade, New Approach Deal wrote:
Delivering on our commitments
The Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement
13. The Government has reviewed the consistency of its family migration arrangements,
taking into account the letter and spirit of the Belfast Agreement and recognising that
the policy should not create incentives for renunciation of British citizenship by those
citizens who may wish to retain it.
14. The Government will change the rules governing how the people of Northern Ireland
bring their family members to the UK. This change will mean that eligible family
members of the people of Northern Ireland will be able to apply for UK immigration
status on broadly the same terms as the family members of Irish citizens in the UK.
15. This immigration status will be available to the family members of all the people of
Northern Ireland, no matter whether they hold British or Irish citizenship or both, no
matter how they identify.
This is really disgraceful. Essentially the British Government is saying it will not give effect to it international treaties unless another agreement is reached. Essentially it is using it as a bargaining chip. So difficult to make sense of.