A leading Swedish opposition party has promised an urgent reprieve for British nationals facing deportation from the country over Brexit administrative issues.
Niels Paarup-Petersen, the migration spokesperson for the Centre party, said it would introduce laws to end the suffering of people such as the 78-year-old British widow Joyce Thomas if, as polls project, it forms a new centre-left coalition after the general election in 10 days’ time. Thomas has been told to leave by next Wednesday after 21 years in Sweden.
Paarup-Petersen said if his party got into power it would reopen the application process so British citizens threatened with deportation could reapply to stay in Sweden.
He said: “We have seen many appalling cases, people who are in a vulnerable state who have every right to be here but are being denied that right because of a minor administrative problem. There has been no leeway whatsoever.
“People are paying the price, but Sweden doesn’t win either. We need a slight touch of humanity here.”
His declaration comes after a British man was detained in Stockholm by police on Tuesday ahead of a threatened deportation, the latest in a string of cases involving British citizens in the past month.
The man’s wife pleaded with Andy Burnham to intervene, but so far no British politician, or official at the European Commission, has commented on the controversy which the Left party has said was “damaging” relations with the UK at the time of a potential reset with the EU.
Al Pinkerton, the Europe spokesperson for the UK’s Liberal Democrat party, also called on Burnham to intervene: “This is the human cost of Brexit: British citizens who built their lives in Europe decades ago now facing detention and deportation.
“The extraordinarily high refusal rate in Sweden should set alarm bells ringing in Downing Street. Andy Burnham must urgently raise these cases with the Swedish government and demand that the protections promised to British citizens under the withdrawal agreement are being honoured.”
Paarup-Petersen’s intervention comes amid growing controversy over what he says is the “appalling” approach of Sweden’s current right-wing government towards British citizens caught out by Brexit.
He said Sweden’s hardline approach to immigration seemed to have infected the approach taken to its obligations under the EU-UK withdrawal agreement, which was a legally binding treaty designed to give lifelong rights to EU citizens in the UK before Brexit and British nationals living in the EU before the end of the transition period in 2021.
“Unfortunately I am not surprised because there is no middle ground here on migration. It is just hard rules and there is little consideration of the way people live in reality,” he said. “I was surprised to hear about the number of British people living here who did not know about the application deadline and that is a big issue.”
Paarup-Petersen said the European Commission should be able to help but “this is a problem that we can solve in Sweden” quickly with the help of the British embassy.
“We have an election in a week and I hope we can change things quickly because this is very much a Swedish problem as it looks like other countries in the EU do not have the same problem.”
Sweden goes to the polls next Sunday with recent polling showing four centre-left parties including the Centre party and the Social Democrats on track to unseat the government’s centre-right coalition.
Two weeks ago the centre left held a 10 percentage point lead for the 13 September ballot, according to an opinion poll by the public broadcaster SVT.
Paarup-Petersen’s promise comes after weeks of revelations about British citizens who had made Sweden their home long before Brexit who had received removal orders or had already been deported.
They include Thomas, a former nurse who has told how she was “sick” with worry at the prospect of leaving her home and proximity to her son, grandchildren and her husband’s grave.
Others include 34-year-old John Sellers, who was deported in January even though he had lived in Sweden since he was 10 years old, and George Mason, 74, who needs round-the-clock care for dementia and who has lived in Sweden for 25 years.
