Amid record immigration, I've no sympathy for dual nationals threatening to renounce UK citizenship

If you happen to own a really tiny violin, get ready to play it for our dual citizens. Currently, they can enter the UK using a non-British passport. However, from next week, that changes.

From Wednesday, dual citizens arriving here will have to present a passport issued by His Majesty’s Government or risk being denied entry. Over a million people could be affected by the move and they’re not happy, with complaints about the cost and the paperwork and claims those affected haven’t received enough notice.

Many of them live in Australia. Talk about whingeing poms. The move was announced by the UK Government 12 months ago and is in line with most major countries, including Australia, who expect their citizens to arrive with their passport.

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From Wednesday, dual citizens arriving in the UK will have to present a passport issued by His Majesty’s Government or risk being denied entry (Picture: Justin Tallis) | AFP via Getty Images

Determined moaners

Dual citizenship is a privilege. You were born into the cradle of the NHS, educated by the state, looked after by the police, fire and ambulance and then you chose to go and make a new life elsewhere. Good for you. But if you want to remain a British citizen, the least you can do is be bothered to maintain a passport like the rest of us.

The most determined moaners have threatened to renounce their British citizenship in protest. Best of luck with that. It costs £372 to file the relevant paperwork. Alternatively they could shut up and get a brand new British passport for £107.

There’s also a bigger picture here. While George has a wine bar in Auckland but a residual fondness for Blighty and Sarah runs a surf school in Miami but likes to pop home for her NHS treatment, Britain is dealing with record immigration.

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Net migration from July 2024 to June 2025 was 204,000 – almost the population of Aberdeen. In 2020, 66.7 million people lived in the UK. Five years later the total was 69.4 million.

Whatever the arguments for and against immigration, it’s a basic job of a government to be across who enters a country and who leaves. Especially when that country is an island and the job should, in theory at least, be straightforward.

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A sensible rationale

The new passport rules are part of reforms designed to modernise Britain’s digital border systems. Part of the rationale is to help the Home Office distinguish between visa overstayers who have no right to remain here and dual citizens who do not have a British passport but who can stay in the UK indefinitely.

With no exit-check system in place, the new rules should give the authorities a clearer picture of who is actually entitled to be here. Nobody likes change, particularly where bureaucracy is involved but it’s a small price to pay for anything that improves national security.

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Plus, in the queue for sympathy, I’m afraid dual nationals who choose to enjoy the delights of two countries are likely to be right down the back near the toilets.

In fact, the only people behind them in the line are those middle-class Italophiles who holidayed in Tuscany every year and claimed to have the perfect recipe for spaghetti carbonara thanks to their great grandmother.

Appalled by Brexit, which they saw as a right-wing calamity, they got dual nationality just in time for Italy to get its most right-wing government since WW2. What’s the Italian word for schadenfreude?