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Obviously, as a good new citizen I will be guided by you far more experienced citizens on the most culturally appropriate forms of celebration. But they all sound good so far.
Lula: why do you want to be a British citizen? Is it just something to do with being able to go travelling? I mean can you travel more if you're British or something? - partly what WP said and partly for the freedom of movement/travel an EU passport brings me. As an Australian, there are still European countries where I need a visa to visit (no, I'm not joking) and there a lot where I can't work or remain indefinitely if I want to. In addition, despite being a resident and having lived in the UK on and off for over 10 years, every time I return to Britain I have to go through a stupid little immigration dance which veers from a serious grilling over more than an hour at Heathrow (last time I returned from Australia - 2006) to a mere incovenience of answering a string of simple questions about where I've been and what I've been doing, even if that's a week in Spain. There are restrictions on the amount of time I can spend out of the UK within any one year (a potential problem, as I'm about to go travelling for a year) and theoretically, my residency could be revoked at any time.
In addition to this, in a hostage situation, I can now try to guage which citizenry is the more loathed and produce my passport accordingly. And there's the queen - she's just great.
I've got to say it's been a very 'interesting' process to go through as well. Very expensive, time consuming and complicated.
On a positive note, they now give you the option of swearing or afffirming your allegiance, which I thought was quite a generous touch, considering the BNP-style sensitivity around the citizenship process. I might go look for a thread on citizenship-py type questions - it would be nice to think that going through the process might benefit someone else as well. |
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