A European Union (EU) court has ruled that EU citizens who become British have more rights than other Brits to bring in spouses from outside the bloc to live in the UK.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) rejected the claim that all British citizens should be subject equally to the Home Office’s stricter immigration regulations on gaining residency.
In June, an expert warned the case risked making Europeans “a super-privileged caste” in the UK.
The ruling means Europeans who gain British citizenship do not need to meet an earnings threshold of £18,600 a year, for example, to bring in a partner from outside the EU, unlike those born in the UK.
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The case concerned an illegal Algerian immigrant, Toufik Lounes, who entered the UK in 2010 on a six-month tourist visa and overstayed for years.
In 2014, he married Spanish citizen Garcia Ormazábal. She came to the UK to study before working for the Turkish embassy and claiming British citizenship, whilst retaining her Spanish passport.
“The court has held that the UK has been wrong to refuse to recognise free movement rights for all those EU citizens who have been naturalising as British following the Brexit referendum,” Colin Yeo, an immigration lawyer, told The Times.