Has Guernsey no say in the issuing of its passports?
FURTHER to your article of Friday 2 June concerning UK citizenship recipients. While I offer the successful applicants my congratulations upon gaining UK/Guernsey citizenship, I cannot help but wonder why it is the UK alone that decides who can and who cannot receive a Guernsey passport. I have lived and worked in Guernsey since 1982, got married in 1983 (I met my local husband abroad and we came to Guernsey together) and we have a child who also lives here. I have no criminal record and can, if required, produce several character references from local residents, some of them States or former States members.
I became a Guernsey resident in my own right after having been married for 10 years. Admittedly, I perhaps should have applied for a Guernsey passport once I got married but I never gave it any thought, particularly as the local consul was able to renew my passport every five years at little cost and with comfortable ease.
However, a few years ago, my birth country decided that I and my fellow compatriots resident in the Channel Islands can no longer apply for a new passport or a renewal at the consulates based here but, instead, now have to travel to the embassy in London to do so. That, of course, adds significantly to the cost of a passport renewal (EUR100 two years ago) through expensive travel as well as incidental expenses and necessarily involving at least a one-night hotel stay as there are no day returns to London.
Thus, now a pensioner with limited means, I thought I should perhaps apply for a Guernsey passport as Guernsey is my home and will be so to the end of my days, having no intention of moving back to the country of my birth.
I therefore proceeded to the Immigration Office at the White Rock and put forward my case. If I had assumed that I would be received with a reassuring 'welcome to our land, no problem and pick up your new passport in a couple of weeks', I would have been sorely disappointed. But, of course, I assumed no such thing but did expect there to be some bureaucracy and small cost involved. However, I was not prepared to hear that I would have to sit a citizens' exam at the CoFE, then costing £55 (now also to include English language and UK citizenship tests), to lay out hundreds or more pounds, plus having to wait 'for up to a year for it to go through'.
Excuse me? Does having been a bona fide Guernsey resident since 1982 mean nothing and, by the way, would it not simply mean an exchange of one EU passport for another? Has Guernsey no say in the matter of its passports and since when are we part of the UK?
I do understand that the UK government represents us in foreign affairs but not why that should extend to the UK having sole control over our passport matters. Besides, over here I am known and local authorities could vouch for me, whereas in the UK they don't know me from Eve.
Needless to say, I decided to abandon my noble quest and will remain an EU citizen – which, with Brexit looming, may not be a bad thing.
Name and address withheld.
