UK Immigration News

The UK Border Agency (UKBA) has announced that it is to change its systems for dealing with visa applications from six European countries in January 2013.

The UKBA says that, between 7th January and 14th January 2013, the UKBA will change its systems for handling visa applications. In future, applications made at British Embassies and Consulates at these countries will be decided at the UKBA regional hub in Croydon, south London.

The countries are

DenmarkNorwayIcelandFinlandEstoniaSweden

People who have a legal right to remain in the UK are being wrongly told that they are obliged to leave by a private contractor funded by the main UK immigration control agency.

A Nobel Prize winning scientist, Sir Andrei Geim, who immigrated to the UK from Russia in the early 90s, has warned that 'stupid' UK immigration policies will hinder UK scientific research.

A Labour member of the House of Lords has said that the government should open up a 'democratic debate' around immigration.

The Mayor of London has given his support to the Migration Matters Trust. The Trust was established last year but will be officially launched in January 2013. Boris Johnson, the Conservative mayor of London, is defying his own party's official policy on immigration, according to The Independent, a London newspaper.

Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the UK between 1997 and 2007, made a rare visit to the UK parliament at Westminster on Tuesday 18th December 2012 and walked into, or perhaps created, a row about immigration.

Mr Blair attended a lunch at Westminster where he spoke and answered journalists' questions. Mr Blair's lunch was held just one day after new Labour leader Ed Miliband appeared to distance himself from the Labour governments of Mr Blair and Gordon Brown on immigration policy.