UK-EU couples after Brexit: migrantization and the UK family immigration regime

In September 2021, a Guardian editorial highlighted the plight of families separated by Brexit: UK citizens in Europe seeking to return to Britain found that their European spouse or partner could not obtain a 'family permit' to join them, and families were caught in what was described as a Kafkaesque situation of suspicion, bureaucracy and delay.

These stories are just the start of the implications of Brexit for UK-EU couples, who had previously enjoyed an almost unconditional right to live in the UK. After Brexit, those whose marriage or registered partnership postdates 31st December 2020 and want to live together in the UK, couples living elsewhere in the EU wishing to relocate to the UK after 29th March 2022, and those in the UK where the EU partner does not have settled or pre-settled status or another visa must all apply for spouse/partner visas, a prolonged and expensive process that requires them to meet income requirements for the British partner that are set higher than earnings of around half the working population, and involves assessments of the 'genuineness' of relationships and 'suitability' of applicants. The consequences for these families is an overlooked effect of Brexit, having been neglected in research and public discussion. Existing research has documented the widespread negative consequences of the UK's family immigration rules through family separation, hardship, and inequalities in access to legal status. Those who cannot meet financial requirements often do not apply, and one in five applications are refused. Errors in visa decision-making mean half of human rights appeals succeed - but appeals are costly, lengthy and stressful. These regulations have long been in place for couples comprising a UK citizen and an overseas partner from outside the EU, but their application to UK-EU couples represents a major change.

Although immigration has taken centre stage in political and academic discussion around Brexit, debates have focussed on labour and irregular migration. The neglect of spouse/partner migration (alongside family migration in general) in these discussions is surprising given the fact that spouses and partners are among the largest sources of long-term migration to the UK, and the frequency of UK-EU partnerships: around 4% of all couples in England and Wales consist of one UK-born, and one EU-born partner. Given the many, continuing connections between the UK and Europe (through travel, family, business, education etc), opportunities for relationships between UK and EU citizens will continue, but little attention has been paid to how such couples will be impacted by Brexit.

This project responds to this urgent gap in the research agenda on the implications of Brexit. It will document how UK-EU couples respond to the intrusion of immigration regulations into their intimate family lives; what new inequalities emerge in this diverse population; and the impact on political and legal discourses of this expansion of the population affected by immigration regulations. The project will capture the crucial initial phase of incorporation of UK-EU relationships into the UK immigration regime, and how the first cohort of UK-EU couples negotiate this new encounter with legal barriers to their mobility and ability to live together in the country of their choice. It will identify personal, social and political impacts for UK-EU couples; identify groups particularly negatively affected; chart emerging legal, policy, and advocacy developments; and create new perspectives on the regulation of spousal migration. The team will work with an Advisory Group of key support and campaigning organisations, and findings from the project will inform service provision, interventions in policy debates, advocacy and legal challenges that will improve the lives of UK-EU couples and, through its focus on problems in the family migration regime, all mixed nationality couples subject to immigration control.