British Passport

siobhan08

So my father was born in Northern Ireland and to the best of my knowledge has only ever held a Irish passport. From research online I have found that I should be entitled to a British passport by descent.

With all this Brexit stuff I have been thinking it might be useful to have one along with my Irish passport. We don't know what is going to happen with Brexit, when they do leave the EU they will have to make new deal with other countries. They might negotiate new visa for certain countries that might only be available to British passport holders etc. For example, the US have the E3 visa for Australians https://www.h1base.com/content/e3visa

If you were in a similar position, would you bother getting a British passport and cover all bases?

I have one, I was born in Britain. I also have an Irish one.
The reasons I hold one are,
Far more British embassies worldwide than Irish, should I ever need one.
Also, I travel over & back to Britain quite a lot so, reckon it will be handier for entering in future.
Don't know if there's any real benefit other than that though.

troyzer

siobhan08 wrote: »

So my father was born in Northern Ireland and to the best of my knowledge has only ever held a Irish passport. From research online I have found that I should be entitled to a British passport by descent.

With all this Brexit stuff I have been thinking it might be useful to have one along with my Irish passport. We don't know what is going to happen with Brexit, when they do leave the EU they will have to make new deal with other countries. They might negotiate new visa for certain countries that might only be available to British passport holders etc. For example, the US have the E3 visa for Australians https://www.h1base.com/content/e3visa

If you were in a similar position, would you bother getting a British passport and cover all bases?

Ireland are more likely to get E3 status. There are actually ongoing negotiations on that right now with the Americans, in exchange they want easy access to retirement visas.

The common travel area isn't going to change. Your ability to work and travel freely in the UK won't be affected. Whatever about a hard border, but ending the CTA is just not possible. A huge amount of the north are Irish citizens with no British passport. If the British suddenly said Irish passport holders weren't allowed in Britain automatically, they'd be telling hundreds of thousands in the North that they have no right to live and work in the place they were born.

That's not even the troubles 2.0, it would be an international crisis and a form of ethnic cleansing.

So yeah, it's not going to help you.

To reply to the comment about embassies, as an EU citizen you are entitled to use the embassy of any EU member state. If you're in Liberia and there is no Irish embassy, the German embassy is required to treat you as a citizen.

siobhan08

bubblypop wrote: »

I have one, I was born in Britain. I also have an Irish one.
The reasons I hold one are,
Far more British embassies worldwide than Irish, should I ever need one.
Also, I travel over & back to Britain quite a lot so, reckon it will be handier for entering in future.
Don't know if there's any real benefit other than that though.

Yes those would be the other reasons why I would also get it. My Irish one would always be my primary passport, having both the Irish and British one would cover all bases regardless of what happens with Brexit.

L1011

If you enter a country on one passport don't expect the others embassy to give any assistance at all. You need to make that decision in advance

troyzer

L1011 wrote: »

If you enter a country on one passport don't expect the others embassy to give any assistance at all. You need to make that decision in advance

Which is why you should always travel on an EU passport if possible. You have 28 (soon to be 27) potential embassies to go to.