It is clearly Brexit that caused a significant increase of citizenship applications from EEA citizens - this should have been well foreseen by Home Office. The little spikes correspond with when David Cameron announced the intention for referendum (2010), when it was made clear there is going to be a referendum (2013), then the referendum date announcement (2015), and referendum date (2016).
The massive spike in applications happens now, as:
- referrendum outcome is known and adverse to vast majority of EEA migrants and the family members for EEA people living in the UK
- Theresa May started to use the rhetoric indicating treating EEA people rights as bargaining chips
- there is still no legal guarantee of status for 3 million EEA people post 31-Mar-2019, theoretically all face loosing jobs (as they will have no work permits) and deportation from 1-Apr-2019 onwards
- after 25% of available time there is zero progress on UK-EU negotiations on the most basic/fundamental human rights and most senior ministers from the Conservative Party voice the need for "hard Brexit" (no deal)
- Home Office did very little to prepare for the mass citizenship seeking - did not scale up in time
- referrendum and anti-immigrant sentiments have dramatically risen, with significant portion of UK public being against the other nationalities living in the UK
- Home Office is introducing bureaucratic hurdles such as the extra steps (not cheap and taking time) - the need to apply for document certifying permanent residence (for EEA people) BEFORE naturalisation application despite the requirements and documentation.
- Home Office requires people who are of independent means, long term unemployed but living off their savings to prove fully comprehensive health insurance while this cannot be purchased from any insurer/institution in the UK. Typical Catch 22. This cannot be retrospectively fixed and this wasn't a requirement before.
- Home Office is very openly discussing a significant tightening of immigration rules, therefore legal status of non-British resident may change at moments notice
- the government is starved of cash and naturalisation/registration applications are significant source of income/profit (in 2016 it was 130000 applications times on average £1100 each = £143 million with the actual costs of processing probably at £23 million)
More statistics summary there:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... itizenship
And detailed spreadsheet with underlying data:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... tables.ods
Interestingly what happened in 2015 is doubling the amount of refusals based on good character requirements - so either a lot of crooks suddenly applied, the rules have changed or a lot of it denied based on just discretion/mood of the case worker (or "unofficial" instruction from superiors).
The percentage of refusals also have significantly increased - from 3% in 2013 to 9% in 2015 and 2016. I would not be surprised if 2017 figures show additional increase - to 12% or so (when finally published, should have been in May 2017 so they are nearly 6 months late).
I disagree with CR001 as although applicant still must meet all requirements, it doesn't guarantee the positive ourcome of naturalisation process as full discretion is given to case worker, there isn't the right to appeal or challenge in court of law or even to be given the justification. Some information may be marked as OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE or higher level and will never be disclosed as part of Subject Access Request process. So you may never find out or information may be quite confusing (as not full) of why you got refused the BC.
With all the announcements coming from HO about how flooded they are (raising average application to approval time from 3 months to 5 months and soon probably 6 months), I'm sure the total amount of applications must have nearly doubled from 130000 last year - say to probably around 200000 for 2017. As it's the EEA citizen and their dependants that are mostly affected by Brexit I estimate additional 30000 EEA citizens resident in the UK made their applications. Brexit quite clearly have made a significant impact.
