Factors to consider before getting British Citizenship

[mkanagar]

Hi,
My wife got her ILR yesterday.
I know in another 12 months time she will be eligible to apply for British Citizenship. We have some confusion deciding if we have to get British Citizenship for sure. I have some few basic questions. Please post your reply if you dont mind.

Why should we apply for British Citizenship when we can stay as ILR as long as we need. The only thing is we should not be outside UK for more than 2 years.?

What are the factors should we consider/think before getting for British Citizenship?

We only have a vision that we will stay here for next 4 to 5 years or so.

We know that we can take OCI (Overseas citizen of India) visa if we decide to go back and settle in India? But do we lose anything for giving up Indian Citizenship?

Will it be a problem for our kids to get education in India if we decide to go back?

Please suggest...

Thanks.

[AlexS]

Hi mkanagar, even though my situation is different because I don't have to give up my original nationality when I become British (I can have both), to me there are two big reasons for getting British citizenship, in no special order:

1) To vote in the country I chose to live in. Many people don't care about this, but coming from a country where democracy wasn't always a reality, I feel that voting is important and not to be taken for granted.

2) The British passport. It's much easier to travel around the world with a British passport, it's less questions at (almost) all immigration points, and no need for visas for most countries, which sometimes are expensive and cumbersome to get.

[Jambo]

As you can imagine you are not the first one to raise the issue. See a recent discussion - ILR + Indian citizenship or British Citrizenship.

[Christophe]

I suppose one big consideration might be that British citizenship will enable you, and presumably your children, to return to live in Britain at any time in the future.

Note that, as Indian citizens, and therefore Commonwealth citizens, you can, as I'm sure you know, already vote in all elections in the UK [Westminster, European and local government elections, and (if relevant) Scottish parliamentary or Welsh Assembly elections].