Tag Archives: royal wedding

You would probably have a heart of stone not to feel pleased for Harry and Meghan. They are clearly two well-suited people who are very happy together.

While I’m delighted for them, I’m also very conscious that their experience is very different to that of many who try to live in this country with their partner from abroad and I want that to change.

I want this country to be a place that recognises that the world is much smaller than it used to be. It’s much easier to fall in love with someone from another country than it used to be. Mind you, one of my closest friends met her husband nearly 30 years ago at Victoria Falls when they were travelling around the world in opposite directions. They now live happily in Scotland and he is a British citizen and got to that state without too much hassle.

It can be very difficult to be allowed to live with your British spouse. A few years ago, party member Holly Matthies, who comes from the States, went through all kinds of traumas trying to get a British visa to join her husband Andrew. She wrote for this site about the toll it took on her mental health.

That first time I flew to the UK, my feckless answers to the questions I was asked — I’d just had to drop out of university due to poor mental health, so I was met with suspicion because they weren’t sure I had any reason to go back home — led to even more questions, and having to wait while the whole next planeful of new arrivals were processed, and then more questions. My partner, who was waiting to meet me, was found and asked questions to see if his answers matched mine. My checked luggage was fetched and searched. Eventually the border guards had to admit there was no reason to prevent me from entering the UK, but they seemed almost disappointed by that fact.