‘I was first person to complete the EU Brexit Settled Status in Cornwall’

With Brexit likely hard and painful now looming large on the horizon, and what appears to be a mess of galactic proportions taking place in Westminster, now seems the most opportune time for the 18,000 EU citizens living in Cornwall to apply for the EU Settled Status.

Considering the mess we’re in, you’d think there would have been a mad dash from the German doctors, Polish hotel workers, Portuguese A&E nurses and even French journalists who made Cornwall their home, to apply for the Settled Status.

Long queues of worried, haggard and bewildered EU citizens should have been forming outside County Hall blocking traffic on the school run and forcing holiday makers to take long detours down single lanes.

Imagine the convoys of foreigners scrambling and scrapping for their precious Golden Ticket.

Well not quite. In fact, nothing. Zilch. Nada. Rien. Nichts. Nothing has happened and the services put up free of charges by Cornwall Council to help EU citizens go through this administrative rigmarole so they can continue to live, to work, to love and to put down roots, create jobs and pay their taxes, have been battling tumbleweed rather than large crowds.

In fact, as far as they are concerned, only one EU citizen has actually applied in person for the status since it was launched by the Government in March – just one. And that person is me.

Perhaps my compadres from the Continent have all done it online or rushed to buy Android smartphones or put their faith and trust in the Royal Mail believing them to safely carry their passport to London where their future will be decided.

Perhaps, they do not see the need. After all, they have never needed to justify their presence here. As with Brits on the Costa Brava or in the Dordogne Valley, being a member of the EU allowed you freedom of movement on our big continent. 

Or perhaps, they are hoping Brexit won’t come to pass and will be cancelled or the Government will change or at least change its mind on EU citizens in Britain.

I have held back for as long as I could, resenting the very idea of Brexit and hating the threat it poses to my life here with my British wife and kids. I want Brexit to be cancelled as a nasty mad experiment that has brought so much division to this great country and shaken its values and identity to its core.

In many ways I am more British than I am French. I have been here for 23 years, longer than I have lived in the country of my birth.

The day after the Brexit Referendum back in June 2016 – three years already! – I looked at the Home Office website to see how I could become a British citizen. The exorbitant £1,200 fees dampened my newly found British zeal.

When our new Prime Minister started saying, through bluster, bravado or as a blackmail ploy in his negotiations with the other 27 EU countries, that he won’t allow EU citizens to come here, echoes of the Windrush Generation scandal resonated and so I finally jumped the gun.

I just applied for the Settled Status. Whether my application is successful is another matter and if my Penzance mother-in-law had her say no doubt I’d be deported tomorrow.

But it’s done!

And what a faff it was! What a malarkey on a grand scale! Like a digital vignette (Androids phone only) of the whole Brexit saga really. 

While the process does not take that long if you have a valid biometric passport, a Samsung phone and access to a computer, the Home Office’s website is like a maze. Links take you to more pages and more pages until you have lost interest or are just lost.

When Theresa May, remember her?, announced the Settled Status scheme which at first cost £65 but saw its cost scrapped, Cornwall Council and business leaders in the Duchy signed an open letter saying how proud Cornwall is of the contribution the EU citizens who live and work here make and offered to help anyone requiring it.

Fair play to them, they have. There is a service available right here in Cornwall, which is an improvement on having to go to Exeter or Bristol, and it is free. Even better. So what do you have to do?

So here’s what you have to do:

First up, you need to call the national Settled Status helpline on 0300 123 7379. It will help you determine whether you need to apply fully (if you have been here for more than five years and do not have any criminal conviction) or pre-apply because your five years will be up just when the scheme expires and Britain has sailed away from the EU.

If you require digital assistance a real person at the other end of the line will determine where you will have to go. It could be County Hall for pre-applications and Reduth for proper applications.

Armed with your biometric passport, the folks at Questions and Answers CIC will set up the right page online and have an Android phone ready.

First you have to start the application process online with your name and contact details.

Then you will be required to take a photograph of your passport itself open at the page with your photograph on it.

Once that’s done you will be requested to continue to apply via the phone as you will need to take a scan of your face. It’s like taking a selfie but with the black and while bad doodling filter left on. It’s all a bit weird.

Once that’s done, the computer will want you to put the phone down on top of your closed passport so it can read the biometric chip and harvest the same information it has already taken.

Next up, you have to do a selfie. A proper one this time in full colour, but make sure it’s done against a white background or it will be rejected. I ended up having to do it against the toilet door of the office as it was the only white flat surface around.

Once all that is done, it’s back to the computer where you will be asked to continue to fill in the rest of the form armed with a pin number you will have received on your phone, even if it’s an iPhone! Confused? You would be if you had to go through this Kafkaesque process.

Finally, after entering some information about yourself, like your address and National Insurance number, you will be asked to click the big green button and off you go.

If all goes well your status will be settled between one and four working days – that’s if the Government does not collapse in the meantime.

If not, then expect more meetings and more paperwork.

To apply for the EU Settled Status check out https://www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families/applying-for-settled-status or read www.cornwall.gov.uk/media/36782359/euss-open-letter.pdf