Doubled over a Heathrow baggage trolley, the former British business director is sobbing uncontrollably, exhausted emotionally and physically after being deported from Sweden. Hours earlier the 65-year-old had been marched on to a plane in Stockholm, separated from his home and his Swedish wife after a five-year battle to stay in the country after Brexit came to an end. An only child with no children and no property in the UK, Charles has effectively been made homeless.
He was last in the UK in 2022 for one week, and before that not since 2017 when he emigrated. His forced flight on Tuesday shows that deportations of British citizens who lived in Sweden before Brexit are continuing. Stockholm has already deported 458 British people after rejected residency applications, a higher proportion in terms of its population than any EU member state.
The situation persists despite promises from opposition parties now on track to form a government that they will introduce urgent laws to give Britons a second chance to apply for residency. I’ve learned some basic Swedish, contributed to Swedish society and the Swedish economy, and for that, I’m being punished. Why are they doing this to good, honest, hard-working people like me and my wife?” Shortly after disembarking in London, he is sitting down in an airport cafe processing what has just happened.
Pointing to a small holdall and a large reusable shopping bag, he says: “All I have is what my wife packed in my bag here with clothes and my little bag” in which he has belongings handed back to him by the captain as he got off the plane. The bag includes a plastic envelope sealed and emblazoned with the words Kriminalvården, the Swedish Prison and Probation Service, containing meagre belongings. In it is a miniature tube of toothpaste, a toothbrush and earplugs given to him in the detention centre where he was locked up for two weeks.
There is also a bright yellow envelope handed to him by the captain before disembarking which he opens for the first time. One is a police document saying he does not need to be “escorted”. The other says he is being deported over a failed residency application under the Aliens Act – his latest legal attempt to stay in Sweden after a pre-Brexit residency application, made on time, was rejected.
Charles’s plight started just over two weeks ago when he and his wife received a text requesting that they come to their local police station to discuss their migration case. They thought it was to discuss their five-year battle to persuade authorities they were in the country lawfully before Brexit. But he was immediately detained and told he would be deported.
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