{"id":758880,"date":"2026-09-03T19:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T19:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/758880\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T19:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T19:16:11","slug":"we-need-a-touch-of-humanity-swedish-opposition-pledges-to-help-britons-facing-deportation-sweden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/758880\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We need a touch of humanity\u2019: Swedish opposition pledges to help Britons facing deportation | Sweden"},"content":{"rendered":"

A leading Swedish opposition party has promised an urgent reprieve for British nationals facing deportation from the country over Brexit<\/a> administrative issues.<\/p>\n

Niels Paarup-Petersen, the migration spokesperson for the Centre party, said it would introduce laws to end the suffering of people such as the 78-year-old British widow Joyce Thomas<\/a> if, as polls project, it forms a new centre-left coalition after the general election in 10 days\u2019 time. Thomas has been told to leave by next Wednesday after 21 years in Sweden.<\/p>\n

Paarup-Petersen said if his party got into power it would reopen the application process so British citizens threatened with deportation could reapply to stay in Sweden<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Niels Paarup-Petersen: \u2018There is no middle ground here on migration.\u2019 Photograph: Centerpartie, Sweden<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cWe have seen many appalling cases, people who are in a vulnerable state who have every right to be here but are being denied that right because of a minor administrative problem. There has been no leeway whatsoever.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are paying the price, but Sweden doesn\u2019t win either. We need a slight touch of humanity here.\u201d<\/p>\n

His declaration comes after a British man was detained in Stockholm<\/a> by police on Tuesday ahead of a threatened deportation, the latest in a string of cases involving British citizens in the past month.<\/p>\n

The man\u2019s wife pleaded with Andy Burnham to intervene, but so far no British politician, or official at the European Commission, has commented on the controversy which the Left party has said was \u201cdamaging\u201d relations with the UK<\/a> at the time of a potential reset with the EU.<\/p>\n

John Sellers with his wife, Caroline. He was deported from Sweden in January despite living there since childhood. Photograph: John Sellers<\/p>\n

Al Pinkerton, the Europe<\/a> spokesperson for the UK\u2019s Liberal Democrat party, also called on Burnham to intervene: \u201cThis is the human cost of Brexit: British citizens who built their lives in Europe decades ago now facing detention and deportation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe extraordinarily high refusal rate in Sweden should set alarm bells ringing in Downing Street. Andy Burnham must urgently raise these cases with the Swedish government and demand that the protections promised to British citizens under the withdrawal agreement are being honoured.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paarup-Petersen\u2019s intervention comes amid growing controversy over what he says is the \u201cappalling\u201d approach of Sweden\u2019s current right-wing government towards British citizens caught out by Brexit.<\/p>\n

He said Sweden\u2019s hardline approach to immigration seemed to have infected the approach taken to its obligations under the EU-UK withdrawal agreement, which was a legally binding treaty designed to give lifelong rights to EU citizens in the UK before Brexit and British nationals living in the EU before the end of the transition period in 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately I am not surprised because there is no middle ground here on migration. It is just hard rules and there is little consideration of the way people live in reality,\u201d he said. \u201cI was surprised to hear about the number of British people living here who did not know about the application deadline and that is a big issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paarup-Petersen said the European Commission<\/a> should be able to help but \u201cthis is a problem that we can solve in Sweden\u201d quickly with the help of the British embassy.<\/p>\n

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George Mason, who has dementia and faces deportation, with his daughter Michelle. Photograph: Copyright: The Mason family<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have an election in a week and I hope we can change things quickly because this is very much a Swedish problem as it looks like other countries in the EU do not have the same problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sweden goes to the polls next Sunday with recent polling showing four centre-left parties including the Centre party and the Social Democrats on track to unseat the government\u2019s centre-right coalition.<\/p>\n

Two weeks ago the centre left held a 10 percentage point lead for the 13 September ballot, according to an opinion poll by the public broadcaster SVT.<\/p>\n

Paarup-Petersen\u2019s promise comes after weeks of revelations about British citizens who had made Sweden their home long before Brexit who had received removal orders or had already been deported.<\/p>\n

They include Thomas, a former nurse who has told how she is \u201csick\u201d with worry<\/a> at the prospect of leaving her home and proximity to her son, grandchildren and her husband\u2019s grave.<\/p>\n

Others include 34-year-old John Sellers, <\/a>who was deported in January even though he had lived in Sweden since he was 10 years old, and George Mason, 74, who needs round-the-clock care for dementia<\/a> and who has lived in Sweden for 25 years.<\/p>\n

Paarup-Petersen said the wider immigration system in Sweden was \u201cmessed up\u201d, with one case of a 95-year-old wheelchair-bound Iraqi woman<\/a> who was told she would be deported after 20 years in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A leading Swedish opposition party has promised an urgent reprieve for British nationals facing deportation from the country…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":758881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-758880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/758881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}