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I really thought that this was supposed to be a supportive forum, and was expecting people to offer suggestions, or at the very least, some empathy. The above contains nothing that is helpful or sympathetic towards the OP's situation. The tone is lacking in empathy and politeness and you present your theories as though they were facts.kamoe wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2022 5:14 pmThe Home Office is well aware of all these possible reasons, and has put in place the rules very much on purpose.
It all comes down to a word: integration. One of the requirements to become a British citizen is to have integrated into British society in such a way that you are in a position to ask people to be a referee. If you aren't in such a position it means you have not reached the level of integration into British society required to become a British citizen. As simple as that.
It's just wrapped up in the form of referees. But it's all very much an intentional and selective way of adding a final condition every applicant needs to meet.
Referees cannot be strangers.The referee must:
The referee must not:
- have known the (adult) applicant for at least 3 years
- a British passport holder and either a professional person or aged over 25 (at least one referee must be a professional person)
- be related to the applicant or the other referee
- be the applicant’s representative
- be employed by the Home Office
- have been convicted of an imprisonable offence in the last 10 years for which the sentence is not spent under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.
I invite you to re read my post again.
Retired people can be referees. You don't have to be in active work to be a referee.So if you are disabled and unable to work and your friends are retired
I'm afraid, this one is true. Yes, the Home Office does establish a very selective list of professions for referees. Hence why I said it was exclusive as requirement. Again, I never said this was fair or that I agreed.or work in low-skilled jobs, and they don't have passport numbers,
As per my first comment, being integrated to some degree, and meeting the Home Office requirement to be considered integrated are not the same thing. Again, I'm not trying to say where the fairness of the bar lies, just that there is one.then you aren't integrated?
I am assuming you mean "or", not "and". Since the two conditions above are mutually exclusive.Or if you are self-employed and work from home for a multi-national company
Your previous colleagues can be referees. Nothing says you have to still work with them, or keep super close ties with them right up until the moment you ask them to be referees. In today's world, it is not uncommon for friends to lose touch for a couple of years then reconnect. That still meets the requirements of knowing someone for at least 3 years. Nothing wrong of asking a colleague you met 4 years ago, worked with them for a year, then left the company; if you had reasonable good ties with them.If you have worked for 4 different employers in the last 3 years
This one is true. You cannot ask someone you have not known for less than 3 years to be your referee.
and thus your current colleagues have not known you for 3 years
Again, you can ask your previous colleagues, neighbours, and friends. No requirement for the referees to still live in the same city of work at the same company.If you have moved to a new city recently, and thus your new colleagues or new friends have not known you for long enough to act as referees
I disagree. It is entirely possible to pass all those and still live an isolated life with no contact with British citizens. Lots of example of people living in their isolated national communities.If you weren't integrated, you would have struggled to pass the 5 year qualifying period, the language requirement and the Life in the UK test, so the fact you've managed to pass those tests
I agree, but don't tell that to me. Tell that to the Home Office.Being integrated is not about having friends who work in certain professions. You would be just as integrated if your friends were street cleaners or plumbers
Your referees don't have to live in the UK. You can ask a British national who lives in Australia (or anywhere in the world) to be your referee, if they meet the requirements., or if some of your British friends have moved to Australia.
Nope, they're not mutually exclusive. You can work for a multi-national company on a self-employed basis (sometimes known as 'freelance'). There are different kinds of self-employment and different kinds of contracts (there might still be some kind of contract that states that you are not an employee and that they are not obliged to offer any hours. You don't get any holiday entitlement etc. If you have to complete tax returns, then you are probably self-employed.). What I meant by multi-national was not that they are well-known but that they are based abroad and that all the contact you have with them is from your home, over email. You can work for them on a self-employed basis, and the fact there is some kind of (freelance) contract between the company and yourself, doesn't mean you are an employee of theirs.
This depends on the nature of the work. Some self-employed people only have clients who are based abroad, and have never met them in person. And your client might be a multi-national company that you've had regular contact with over email for 10 years, but you may never have interacted with the company's director but only with lots of different project managers (and project manager was not on the list of acceptable professions the last time I checked), due to projects being assigned to different project managers in the many different countries that the company owns offices in. This all depends very much on the nature of the work! I do have personal experience of this. You don't get a lot of personal contact with the same individual. They have a system where you just press a button to let them know you accept a task, and then you press a button once you have completed the task. There are different kinds of self-employment. Not just people who run shops or cafés.If you are self employed, you would have met suppliers, and clients.
That really does depend on the nature of the work! You don't have to meet colleagues online if your work is individual. And if you occasionally do interact with some of them for handovers, it's unlikely that they would be able to meet the criteria for a referee as they don't live in the UK (multi-national means that the team of people who work for them from their homes are scattered around the world. I have personal experience of this and it is due to the nature of the business that they need to have representatives in different countries, who speak different languages. It's unlikely that my colleagues in Spain or Italy are British citizens and they probably don't belong to any of the professions on the list either as that's not the kind of work we do).If you work from home for a multinational company, you would have met colleagues online.
If you are freelance, then you do not work for a company. You supply services for that company. Big difference. I would not recommend presenting yourself as working for X or Y company, if you are only freelancing, as that is akin to misrepresenting the truth. Be careful.anonymous09 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 12:26 pmYou can work for a multi-national company on a self-employed basis (sometimes known as 'freelance').
This is how the list was explained to me by my own referee. It is obviously not government advice, but it seems to make sense to me.
In other words, don't shoot the messenger. Thanks @secret.simon, better put than I could.secret.simon wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 2:46 pmTo the OP, we (the members, not just the moderators) are here to help people out with our experience of the system and the knowledge that we have had from our own journeys. But we do deal with the immigration system as it is, not as how we or others think it should be.
Please clarify what you mean. Trigger alarm bells to whom and in what context? Do you mean in the context of applying for BC, even if the applicant has provided evidence of exceptional circumstances? Do you mean that if somebody who, due to no fault of their own, struggles to find suitable referees, the Home Office deliberately wants to exclude them from successfully applying, even if they have a valid reason that can be evidenced (e.g. medical statement and/or police report)? Do you mean that somebody who has a learning difficulty, and/or autism, and/or a disability that makes them housebound, and/or has been a victim of domestic abuse and/or harassment (none of those are mutually exclusive and you can also have multiple disabilities at the same time) will not be able to apply for any kind of exemption from the referee requirement, even if they have strong evidence to show that the circumstances are of no fault of their own? What I'm trying to find out is whether they have EVER granted an exemption from the referee requirement, due to exceptional/mitigating circumstances - please do back up your answer with some stats or at least some anecdotal accounts or some articles that discuss these barriers to vulnerable groups in more depth. Since some groups CAN be exempt from the language and LITUK test (people over 65 and people with certain types of memory problems), I wouldn't rule out that there might be some way for them to overlook the fact someone has too few referees, in exceptional circumstances. That's what I'm trying to find out please. If you've never heard of such an exemption being made, then please leave the thread open as there might be people who have personal experiences of dealing with the Home Office in similar circumstances. I would be very interested in hearing from people who have been in a similar situation, due to no fault of their own.secret.simon wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2022 6:52 pm
If the applicant genuinely knows nobody in the local community for a period of years, that will likely trigger alarm bells at multiple levels, from the applicant's mental health (perhaps they are autistic, in which case it may trigger a medical intervention) to the applicant being held hostage or in a hostile family environment (which may justify a police intervention). I would be cautious of making an argument on those grounds.
I don't think he/she mentioned anything about Western Europe but I'm from Western Europe and I can assure you that my home country doesn't even have any kind of language test or anything, and they definitely wouldn't dream of directly or indirectly excluding vulnerable groups of people. Since you brought up other countries, I don't think most Western countries can compare to the UK in terms of the many requirements and high fees, but let's leave that discussion out of this.secret.simon wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2022 6:52 pm
And as @kamoe has correctly pointed out, countries in western Europe take integration into the national culture very seriously. See for instance, this news article from 2018, when a woman was denied French citizenship because she refused to shake the hands of a male official at the citizenship ceremony (literally the last stage of the journey).
Please could you clarify - is this YOUR personal opinion or the Home Office's opinion? If the latter, why not clearly state that, by adding something like "In the eyes of the Home Office, ..." That way you would reduce the risk of people mistaking your statement for your opinion. IF that IS your personal opinion, then it comes across as judgemental as you don't know what people have been through, to end up in such a situation, due to no fault of their own. If you are still talking from the perspective of the Home Office, then please clarify this, but I still have a follow-up question regarding vulnerable groups (e.g. victims of domestic abuse, harassment etc., who can provide evidence of their situation).In other words, while it's reasonable and common to be isolated from wider society in some ways, if you have managed to have a lifestyle that isolates you from society in all ways, then you need to ask yourself some questions regarding how truly you are integrated into the host society.
You've been picking on my choice of words/grammar tbf. I correctly used the word 'and' as you can definitely be self-employed AND the self-employed work you do can be for a company as you can also be a contractor who works for a specific company. You can also be self-employed AND employed somewhere else at the same time. They are in no way mutually exclusive and it's not akin to misrepresenting the truth since, at least colloquially, you can say you work for them if you are a self-employed contractor, even if you have to complete tax returns. You've been saying they are mutually exclusive but I'm trying to explain that that isn't the case. Whether it's grammatically correct to say that you work for a company if you are a self-employed and at the same time are a contractor for a specific company is besides the point though. My point was that if you work for home on a self-employed basis and the people you carry out work for are abroad, you may not have close regular contact with a lot of people (depending on the nature of the work), and at the same time you might belong to a vulnerable group (e.g. housebound, learning difficulty, abuse victim etc.), and the question I had in relation to this was whether the Home Office has EVER taken mitigating/exceptional circumstances into account. I'm looking for statistics or anecdotal accounts from people who have had similar circumstances, due to no fault of their own.If you are freelance, then you do not work for a company. You supply services for that company. Big difference. I would not recommend presenting yourself as working for X or Y company, if you are only freelancing, as that is akin to misrepresenting the truth. Be careful.
I would seriously consider doing this, or to write to my MP, but before I do that, I would like to hear from people who may have personal experiences of having ended up in a similar situation due to no fault of their own. So please do not lock the thread as there might be other people who have at some point been in a similar situation and who have some suggestions, based on their experiences.secret.simon wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 2:46 pm
If you decide to write to the Home Office on the lines you outlined in your posts, keep us posted of any response either ways.