UK tourists in France warned over £11,000 bill to return to England

British expats face a huge £11k Brexit visa bill to return to the UK. A British expat with Parkinson’s disease and his wife living in France have been left stuck in the European country and have been told they must pay a whopping £11k.

Stephen Kaye, 60, an IT specialist, spent his entire working career paying tax in the UK, and his French wife, Carmen Delaunay, 64, say they have had the “door slammed in our faces” due to the “insulting” post-Brexit immigration rules.

According to the new rules, European Union citizens are prohibited from entering freely into the UK unless they had an unbroken five-year residency in Britain before the divorce from the EU. Mr Kaye told The Guardian: “My first reaction upon discovering that Carmen did not have an automatic right to return to England was one of disbelief.

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“It did not seem possible that a ‘civilised’ country (the UK) could invent such an outrageous rule. My view was that a British citizen should have the right to marry a person of any nationality and be able to live with that person indefinitely in the UK.

“It is as simple as that. I can understand that the UK would want to disallow ‘staged’ marriages, but that is clearly not the case for Carmen and me [married in the UK in 2012].” Ms Delaunay said: “The door is closed to us. We are being treated like newcomers that have never been in the country. It is insulting and unfair.

“Stephen’s illness has made him more vulnerable and that is exactly when the door should be open. To find the door slammed in your face is really upsetting. The rules don’t take account of life. Things happen, things change.” The Home Office declined to comment on the case but said EU citizens who had lived in the UK before Brexit but had been away for more than five years without any visits back even for a short period of time were not eligible for the EU citizens settlement scheme.

“Applicants who have been absent from the UK for an extended period may not be eligible to apply for EUSS but there are other visa options available for non-British citizens wanting to live in the UK with a British spouse,” a spokesperson said.