I got British citizenship via the five-year route. Labour’s new 10-year rule will cause untold pain | Nesrine Malik

Starmer claims to want integration. Yet denying people safety, belonging and the right to vote for a decade amounts to the exact oppositeThere are many lies told by politicians when it comes to immigration in the UK, but none is bigger than the claim that it’s all too easy. Too easy to enter Britain; too easy to be given handouts; too easy to acquire citizenship. The UK is presented as an inert country, passively receiving future Britons that it does not charge, test or, indeed, invite. The government’s latest raft of policies to deal with the “failed experiment” of “open borders” is heavily influenced by this lie, as it is intended to make things harder for immigrants. One of those policies went broadly under the radar, a small technicality amid Keir Starmer’s unsettling rhetoric, but it will have serious consequences.That policy is extending the period you’re required to be settled in Britain before you can get permanent residency, and then citizenship, from five years to 10 years. As someone who became naturalised under the five-year route, my stomach sank when I saw the news.Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...