www.devco.net by r.i.pienaar

British Citizenship

I previously mentioned that got a letter confirming it all went well with my application for naturalisation, the whole process is now more or less done.

I had the ceremony last Thursday and around 11:24 in the morning the Mayor of Greenwich handed me my certificate so I am now all done with that and a full Citizen of the United Kingdom.  I arrived here on the 2nd of Feb 2002 and became a citizen on the 7th of Feb 2008.  I could have applied last year in March already and probably would have been done with it all around September but I was procrastinating and eventually the noise about the reforms in the immigration laws gave me the kick I needed to complete it. 

The biggest advantage I'll see immediately is of course the passport, traveling as a South African - or in fact being a South African out of South Africa - is such a liability your whole life is just tough, massive headache of visas, immigration time wasting etcetc, endless hassle.  In tourist visas alone I spent about GBP500 in the last few years never mind all the time wasted in getting those and even just in queuing in the non EU citizen lines at airports, all gone now!  I've also had to struggle quite a lot with tenancy agreements for flats that I rent etc as I was never sure if I'll even be in the country for the year they want you to sign, so had to always get 6 month break clauses put in etc.

This is a part of the certificate I received during the ceremony:

Today I'll apply for my first UK passport, it should come through in about 2 weeks unfortunately just too late to attend FOSDEM.

The process for applying for citizenship is all hyped up to be this fantastic experience for applicants, a great introduction to the country and its people.  This is done through the test you need to pass and a formal ceremony that even includes singing God Save The Queen. 

Overall I'd say the whole thing just left me cold, personally I see little point to most of the hoops I had to jump through.  I have to say though that the test has some value - it tests that you have a grasp of English and in that function its a success so I'd keep it for that reason.  The ceremonies though? waste of time and money in my eye.