A New Windrush-Style Scandal Brewing in the Shadows of Brexit
(Lanka-ew-Nes -19.Nov.2025, 8.40 PM) When Britain left the European Union, Home Office officials promised that no citizen of an EU family household living legally in the UK would be left behind. The EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) was presented as a clean and humane transition: those who already possessed EU permanent residence cards would merely “convert” their status into the new digital format, preserving their rights after Brexit.
But four years after the 30 June 2021 deadline, a troubling question has emerged:
Why did the UK Border Force continue to allow thousands of EU permanent residence card holders to enter and exit the country freely — without ever warning them that their residence status had legally expired?
Today, hundreds — possibly thousands — of long-term residents, particularly Sri Lankan nationals who originally settled in the UK as family members of Italian citizens — find themselves trapped in a legal nightmare. Their British citizenship applications are being rejected, their residence rights questioned, and many have already spent thousands of pounds fighting refusals they never should have received.
An expanding body of evidence suggests that the UK Border Force, the Home Office, and the wider immigration oversight system may have collectively failed — or systematically avoided — notifying EU permanent residence holders of the EUSS conversion requirement.
Some immigration lawyers are calling it:
“Windrush 2.0 — Created by Brexit, Enabled by Silence.”
Under EU law (Directive 2004/38/EC), thousands of non-EU nationals — including many Sri Lankans — were issued “Permanent Residence Cards” as the family members of EU citizens.
After Brexit, the Withdrawal Agreement stipulated that these documents would cease to have legal effect after 30 June 2021. Any holder who failed to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme would be considered without valid immigration status, unless they had reasonable grounds to apply late.
But the crucial failure emerged here:
Border Force officers continued — for years — to accept these invalid EU permanent residence cards at airports.
Passengers holding these cards were allowed to:
Enter the UK without questioning
Leave the UK without warnings
Re-enter repeatedly with no mention of the EUSS
Continue their lives unaware their legal status had changed drastically
Border Force officers did not provide notices, did not issue warnings, and did not flag the change in the Home Office system.
In effect, thousands were kept in the dark.
Internal Home Office communication seen by immigration advisers repeatedly emphasised that:
Border Force officers were fully aware that EU permanent residence cards would become invalid after the 2021 deadline.
Officers were instructed not to treat these travellers as illegal entrants unless the internal system showed an “immigration issue”.
Officers were not required, nor encouraged, to inform card holders of their requirement to join the EUSS.
In practice, this meant the UK border effectively became a silent accomplice in misleading long-term EU family members about their immigration position.
Immigration lawyers now describe this as:
“A failure of duty, a failure of communication, and a failure of fairness.”
The irony — and injustice — deepens.
Many of these EU permanent residence holders later applied for British citizenship, believing they were settled, secure, and compliant. Their applications were rejected with the following reasoning:
**“You were required to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme before applying for naturalisation.
As you failed to do so, you were not free from immigration control at the time of application.”**
This refusal has blindsided:
Families who have lived in the UK for 10, 15, even 20+ years
Elderly residents who believed their “Permanent Residence Card” was lifelong
Sri Lankan families who migrated from Italy with lawful EU documentation
Young adults raised in the UK since childhood
Workers who have paid taxes for decades
One common complaint is now being heard across legal offices:
“How can the Home Office reject my citizenship for not converting a visa I wasn’t told to convert?”
Adding to the confusion:
These Permanent Residence Cards were issued by the Home Office, not EU consulates.
The cards never stated they were issued under EU law.
Many holders reasonably believed the cards were UK-issued permanent residency, not temporary EU-limited permissions.
This created a structural trap.
The Home Office now argues:
EU permanent residence expired on 30 June 2021
Holders should have known to switch to the EUSS
Yet the Home Office:
Never wrote to them individually
Never included conversion instructions with their documents
Never warned them at airports
Never updated the physical card wording
Never flagged them in the border system
Instead, the system appears to have remained deliberately silent.
The parallels are uncomfortable and increasingly undeniable.
1. A government-created change in immigration rules
Windrush: Commonwealth citizens suddenly needed decades of proof
Brexit: EU permanent residence cards became invalid overnight
**2. A failure to notify
Years of silence at the border
Citizenship refusals
People asked to prove a right they always possessed
Lives upended
Families spending thousands fighting the Home Office
A group disproportionately affected: Commonwealth citizens then, Sri Lankan-Italian families now**
Community groups describe the emerging crisis as:
“Windrush for the EU generation.”
This is the question now circling legal and parliamentary circles:
Was this a bureaucratic oversight — or a deliberate policy choice?
Some immigration advisers argue:
The Home Office was overwhelmed by 6.2 million EUSS applications
It did not want to trigger a “panic wave” at airports
It hoped EUSS sign-ups would occur naturally
It feared legal liability if actively notifying people resulted in wrongful exclusions
Others take a more severe view:
“The Home Office avoided informing residents because acknowledging the expiry of their status would create legal responsibilities that were easier to ignore.”
Border Force officers confirm, off-record, that they were:
“Not authorised” to issue warnings
Told “not to discuss EUSS at the border”
“Advised to allow travel unless there was a red flag”
If accurate, these claims suggest not a simple oversight — but a policy of intentional non-communication.
Campaigners, particularly among the Sri Lankan-Italian community, are now demanding action.
They want Parliament to establish a Home Affairs Select Committee inquiry to investigate:
Why Border Force officers were not instructed to warn travellers
Why the Home Office never wrote to PR card holders individually
Why citizenship applications are being rejected despite lawful residence
Why the Home Office did not automatically transition PR holders to EUSS
Why long-term residents were effectively treated like overstayers
How many applicants have been denied British nationality
Whether racial or national bias has occurred
MPs are beginning to take interest.
One immigration barrister summed it bluntly:
“If the government knew, and chose silence, then this is negligence on a national scale.”
Under the Withdrawal Agreement, the European Union retains an interest in:
Monitoring the treatment of EU citizens and their family members
Ensuring the UK meets its obligations
Preventing discrimination against Withdrawal Agreement beneficiaries
If the Home Office continues to refuse citizenship on the grounds that people were “not free from immigration control” — despite previously holding EU permanent residence — the EU may be compelled to challenge the UK formally.
Legal experts argue:
“The UK cannot penalise individuals for failing to do something it never told them to do.”
If rejected citizenship applicants escalate their cases to European courts, the UK could face:
Political embarrassment
Financial compensation claims
A formal breach investigation under the Withdrawal Agreement
Renewed comparisons to the Windrush scandal
Among the most affected are Sri Lankan families who migrated from Italy under EU law.
For many:
Britain became home
Children were born and raised here
Mortgages were taken
Businesses opened
Taxes paid for decades
These families were issued permanent residence cards directly by the Home Office, believing — reasonably — that they held indefinite status.
Now they face:
Nationality refusals
Threats to their long-standing residence rights
Legal bills running into thousands
The psychological trauma of uncertainty
Long delays in appeals
Many express anger that:
“The Home Office never wrote to us, never emailed us, never informed us — and now they blame us for not knowing.”
This remains the central unresolved issue.
Border Force failures:
Allowed invalid documents to be used
Never issued warnings
Never provided EUSS leaflets
Never checked conversion status
Home Office failures:
Never wrote to PR card holders
Failed to identify them in databases
Continued to accept naturalisation fees
Penalised applicants for not knowing the law
Changed nationality guidance without transitional protection
Experts argue responsibility lies with both institutions, each creating gaps the other refused to fill.
To prevent a repeat of Windrush, campaigners are calling for urgent reforms:
1. Immediate suspension of citizenship refusals
for former EU permanent residence card holders.
2. A Home Office apology
acknowledging the failure to notify.
3. Automatic acceptance of naturalisation applications
from those previously holding EU permanent residence.
4. A Border Force inquiry
into why warnings were not issued at airports.
5. Parliamentary investigation
into miscommunication and potential negligence.
6. EU intervention
to ensure fairness under the Withdrawal Agreement.
The silent collapse of EU permanent residence rights after 30 June 2021 is not an accident — it is a systemic failure.
A failure of planning.
A failure of communication.
A failure of transparency.
A failure that echoes the darkest lessons of the Windrush scandal.
If the UK does not act swiftly, this may become:
Britain’s next immigration scandal — one created by Brexit, but paid for by innocent families.
-By LeN Political Correspondent
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by (2025-11-19 15:11:48)
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