Passport application jeopardised by honest mistake?

[Soroush]

Hello everyone! I am technically British (by descent) but I did not know it for sure until recently, and I am still accumulating the documentation to apply for a British passport. In the past, because I was not sure I was British and I therefore did not have a UK passport, I entered the UK on a foreign passport several times and also studied there for a while. It appears that entering the UK on a foreign passport while being British is classified as some sort of a crime, although I did not know that at the time. My question is: will my past visits to the UK on a foreign passport jeopardise my UK passport application?

Another thing: I have seen (while browsing this forum) that credit checks or 'electoral register' checks are carried out on passport applicants. I have lived outside the UK for quite some time and I was never on the electoral register, and I am applying for my passport from abroad (USA) where I live now. Are the same credit checks and electoral checks carried out on people applying from abroad as on people applying within Britain, and will my absence from the electoral register (as well as possible holes in my credit check although I do have a British bank account from my student days there) cause problems in my passport application?

Thank you very much for your help, and sorry for the convoluted questions! Best regards - Soroush.

[Mr Rusty]

If you are British, then you are entitled to a British passport - that's it, no arguments.

There's no crime involved in a dual national using their other nationality to enter the UK, it's just that technically a British citizen doesn't require Leave to Enter, which is what you were given.

I stand to be corrected, but your questions about credit rating etc relate more to someone applying for citizenship rather than to a Brit Cit who is applying for a passport. So what are you applying for?

[John]

Soroush, there is no requirement for a British Citizen ever to have lived in the UK, when applying for a British passport. Accordingly it is totally possible that the person will never have been on the electoral roll, and a credit reference check would throw up a blank.

In short, you are imagining a problem that does not exist. Prove you are British and the passport will be issued.

It appears that entering the UK on a foreign passport while being British is classified as some sort of a crime,

The only crime is wasting all that unnecessary time at the port of entry, queuing in the non-EEA queue.

The US is very fussy about these things and I suspect you are confusing US law with UK law.

[Soroush]

Thanks very much for your reply! Well, it is true that living in the US does create a sort of default paranoia setting in the average human (what have I done wrong? is there something I should know to avoid getting into horrible trouble? what you gonna do when they come for you?) and the 'ignorance is no excuse' rule does not help, especially when the laws are so complicated! I hope the UK border and passport authorities are a bit more mellow.

I'm impressed by the swift replies on this forum - thanks very much! Lots of generosity here.

Best - Soroush.

[Soroush]

Hello again - just a tiny residual droplet of paranoia to be dispelled!

I spent some time studying in a British university, and during that time I had (and still have) a bank account, which means they must have some record of my time there and I must have a credit history, but I never enrolled (or whatever) in the electors' register because I wasn't sure I was eligible (plus I am sadly allergic to bureaucracy and have a dangerous tendency to avoid it because it is incomprehensible and boring, only to be punished later). If they do find information about me, won't they get all upset and suspicious about the fact that I lived and studied in the UK without a British passport and only now I am applying for one? What kinds of scary checks do they carry out anyway?

Sorry to be so worried. Perhaps living in the US has made me overly intimidated by bureaucrats (especially immigration ones). I just want to make sure I'm not going to have gruesome horrors unleashed upon me just because I was (and am) a bit clueless about these procedures! In my experience, many bureaucrats have trouble differentiating between cluelessness and actual malice.

Thanks very much for your help. I appreciate your refreshingly clear advice. Yours in paranoia - Soroush.

[Soroush]

Hello Mr Rusty and thanks for your message, which for some reason I didn't see until now. I am applying for a British passport through descent, and possibly my confusion about credit checks and so on is due to the fact that I was reading some passport-related threads on this forum in an effort to figure out the rules. It could be quite simply that I am confusing the two rules because the people who wrote those threads had first naturalised or were going to naturalise before applying for their passports or somehow were in a different category from mine. In fact I still don't know what They do when someone in my category (child of a British person) applies for their first passport from overseas, and what kinds of checks they carry out. (This shows that my talent for understanding things of this nature is severely limited). Any information that will shed light on this confusing issue will be most welcome.

Again, I'm very sorry for being overly paranoid. Because the world of bureaucratic rules is very blurry to me, I constantly imagine, so to speak, monsters lunging menacingly out of the mist of bureaucratic incomprehensibility, where perhaps there are only mosquitos or I have weapons (birth certificates etc) which will defeat the monsters and confound their poisonous fangs. Sorry, sorry to wax poetic there. These things really intimidate me and fry my brain!

Thanks very much to both of you and sorry to be so scared. I will heave the most gigantic sigh of relief when (if??) all this is over and no eight-headed monsters have torn me to shreds etc etc.

Best regards, and sorry to be clueless -

Soroush.