The Home Office is being sued for alleged breach of the Brexit withdrawal agreement after stripping almost 1,500 EU citizens of their full rights to live in the UK. Campaign group the3million lodged papers at the high court on Friday after several cases emerged of EU citizens who were granted pre-settled status to remain in the country after Brexit but were told recently those decisions were an “error”. According to the statement of claim, the Home Office decision to remove all or some rights from citizens granted pre-settled status was made without “procedural protections” required under the Brexit withdrawal agreement (WA).
These protections include a right of an appeal and an assessment of “proportionality”, which would establish whether removal of rights was appropriate given the EU citizens in question built their lives in the UK on the basis of the Home Office’s original decision. Among the people affected by the Home Office policy was a 33-year-old Brazilian Italian engineer who has been in London since 2018. He was originally told that he should not have settled status: he could stay but his Brazilian wife could not, a decision that was reversed in the last few weeks after objections were raised.
Another EU citizen who raised her case with the3million is a woman working in the NHS and studying for a PhD in dentistry. She has said the Home Office’s notification had “turned her life upside down”. In October 2026, the Home Office accepted that where a person provides evidence of their Italian citizenship, together with evidence that this was obtained through jure sanguinis, they would now accept that this person was an Italian from birth.
Previously it told a number of Brazilian Italians they were granted status “in error” because they had not presented an Italian passport at the time of their application, merely stating they were Italian citizens. Monique Hawkins, acting CEO of the3million, said: “The Home Office is putting the cart before the horse. It denies people the safeguards the withdrawal agreement guarantees – a fair assessment and a right of appeal – because it says they are ‘clearly’ not covered by the agreement.
That’s like saying someone doesn’t need a trial because they’re ‘clearly’ guilty.” She said the Home Office U-turn on jure sanguinis Italian nationals showed it could change its policy when its errors were exposed. The high court papers said: “This is a simple matter of providing proper due process. Despite our advocacy efforts since early 2025, the Home Office refused to change course, so we have no option but to challenge the policy in court.” The campaign group is asking the court to declare that the “grant in error policy is unlawful, by breach of the WA and/or common law” and make whatever order is necessary to “excise the offending parts of the published policy” Many complained that although they were jure sanguinis (direct and unbroken Italian relative), they could not get a passport because the public institutions were in lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic.
Lawyers have also argued that the apparent generosity of the UK, which minimised the evidence required by any EU citizens applying to stay after Brexit, “compounded” the current Home Office policy of removing rights. The unlawfulness of the policy is compounded by the nature of the EU settlement scheme itself. The UK deliberately implemented a scheme that, in a number of respects, operated more generously than the minimum requirements of the WA.
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