Swedish MP challenges deportations of elderly Britons over Brexit residency row

Joyce Thomas is 78 years old, a retired nurse who moved to Sweden in 1999 to be closer to her son and grandchildren. She had a life there—a husband, friends, a grave where her husband now rests after dying of cancer in 2023. Four weeks ago, she was told to leave. She has done nothing wrong, she says, and she means it. She paid her taxes, drew no benefits, lived quietly in Värmland. But she missed a deadline she did not know existed, and now Sweden is deporting her.

Thomas arrived in Sweden at 57 with her husband, a financier who handled the household's paperwork. When Brexit happened, both of them asked—repeatedly, they say—whether they needed to do anything to stay. They were told they did not. But there was a deadline: December 31, 2021. British citizens lawfully resident in Sweden before the UK left the EU were supposed to apply to formalize their status under the withdrawal agreement, the legally binding treaty that governed the separation. Thomas did not apply until 2023, weeks after returning from a trip to the UK. By then it was too late. Her appeal failed last week.

She is not alone. Horace Mason, 74, has dementia and Parkinson's disease and lives in full-time care. He moved to Sweden 25 years ago to be near his son Carl and his grandchildren. He, too, received a four-week deportation order. His family tried a different legal route, arguing that his right to family life under the European Convention on Human Rights should protect him. The migration court of appeal disagreed. The state's interest in regulated immigration, the court ruled, outweighs Mason's interest in staying close to the people he depends on.

On Wednesday, Häkan Svenneling, a left-wing opposition MP representing Värmland, was scheduled to meet with Thomas. The day before, he had written to Johan Forssell, Sweden's migration minister, asking what he intended to do to stop these deportations. In his letter, Svenneling pointed out that the withdrawal agreement was supposed to protect people like Thomas—those who were lawfully in Sweden before Brexit. "It was not intended to result in elderly people who had lived in Sweden for decades losing their rights to remain because of a missed deadline or deficiencies in their application," he wrote. He added that the deportations were damaging bilateral relations between Sweden and the United Kingdom at a time when both countries were trying to strengthen ties.

Sweden's approach is notably harsher than that of other EU member states. The UK Foreign Office has formally raised concerns with the European Commission that Sweden is taking "a considerably stricter approach" to late applications than anywhere else in Europe, with a disproportionate number of refusals. In practice, the Foreign Office noted, individuals are unlikely to have their reasonable grounds for a late application accepted. David Milstead, who heads Brits in Sweden, a campaign group with 9,000 members, has been tracking these cases since 2020. Among the genuine missed-deadline cases his group has documented, he said, he cannot verify a single instance in which Sweden accepted the reasons for applying late.

Milstead suspects that Sweden's broader migration politics—which have "moved sharply towards restriction" in recent years—are influencing how the withdrawal agreement is being implemented. That creates a bind: EU law should protect these applicants, but it becomes politically harder to defend remedial action when a government's entire migration stance is built on saying no. "That cannot displace EU law, but it makes remedial action harder to defend politically," Milstead wrote.

Sweden's migration agency declined to discuss individual cases but stated that not knowing a Brexit application had to be made was not a "reasonable ground" to stay. The agency's position is technically defensible under the letter of the law. But it collides with the lived reality of people like Thomas and Mason—people who asked, were told they did not need to do anything, and now face removal from the only home they have known for two decades or more. Thomas spoke to the Guardian about what awaits her: "I am in shock. I feel sick. An individual's life is at stake at my age. It is hell. I have done nothing wrong." The question now is whether Svenneling's intervention, and the UK's formal diplomatic pressure, will force Sweden to reconsider how it is interpreting the agreement it signed.