Is this weird? I feel this is really weird and not cool.

Nan, it looks like the scheme has been scrapped
https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/hiring-and-firing/pick-for-britain-scheme-for-uk-based-farm-workers-scrapped/655189.article



OP, sounds like you have some real arseholes in your life. I’m really sorry.
Make them take the Life in the UK test and see how they do. 
Get your citizenship. My passport, well it’s currently red, looks the same as everyone elses. And well screw em. It’s none of their business, honestly. It’s your life, and you are allowed to be British, you earned it!

I used to pick raspberries and strawberries as a teenager, loved it! Potato picking was where the money was though but that was when school was in. 

Thank you to everyone who's replied. You've all given me such valuable advice, and even put a smile on my face. Thank you. 

My husband and I been really talking it over, and we want to wait for my citizenship to be approved and for me to have (another) blue book in my hands before we jump across the pond. Thank you to everyone who contributed regarding immigration, as that's something I'm going to get cracking on now while we have some time.

He's had further discussions with his family, and he really feels the environment our kids would grow up in wouldn't be one he'd want them to experience. He's seen how I've been treated over the years and doesn't want our children to see their mother being treated that way. He had a rough childhood, and things "calmed down" during the start of adulthood, but since we've been married he's starting to see history repeating itself. When I initially came here I told him I didn't want kids util I had citizenship, mainly because I had fears of the Home Office changing the rules, but now I'm just glad we waited because of this. I think it would've been really hard having them here and then finding out how his family felt. When we do have kids, they'll be surrounded by people who love them for who they are in the US, and I'm willing to bet my family will boast to others about how our kids are half-British.

Thank you again to everyone. 

I'll speak as a British (born) person. This will be generalisation and not my personal opinion, but this is one generalised theory from your unfortunate feedback from your great news.

I believe this stems from the EU. EU citizens come in and get a vast array of advantages, such as relief on inspection of their cars, immediate benefits (welfare), NHS etc etc. EU folk swarm to the UK to take advantage of this. Further, asylum seekers come and get immediate help and housing whilst other people such as pensioners struggle for food and these are people who lived through the war.

This sort of information has been flooded over facebook for years. I say that as I am British born so I seen this sort of stuff for years with the Facebook algo doing its thing. This then makes British people retreat inwards and create a protectiveness to their identity.

Now, that's a theory. The information I said above is not accurate, is not my opinion but is what people see on these hate-driven social media posts. I know this to be true because I have worked with two fantastic engineers from Poland and Bulgaria who immediately got hateful letters through their letter boxes once the vote to leave the EU was confirmed. So much so that the Bulgarian engineer went back to Bulgaria due to the hate. It's shocking.

With this being said, and ignorant people not knowing what non-EU folk have to go through for love and their sacrifice, they see top level 'Government handing out passports to anyone'. This is my only theory. I blame brexit causing divisiveness.

The sheer amount of money, rules, criteria, tests and utter nonsense you guys have to go through to be with the ones you love, citizenship is the absolute least you deserve. Let's be honest, your identity is your culture, not what a little book says. I'm sorry you have received this feedback. If it's any comfort my entire family and friends would be thrilled when my wife eventually gets citizenship.

Regarding being British. There are criteria you must meet however before you're the exact same as us:

• Constantly complain about the weather, even when sunny as it can be too hot
• Religiously watch Great British Bake Off
• Have a hatred for Manchester United

 

This is basically spot on with some of the conversations I've had with my UKC "friends." One of them was actually telling me they had considered putting letters through their EU neighbour's letterbox expressing their "disgust" with them. It's all so vile. I just can't believe I was actually associated with someone who thought this way.

If you don't mind me asking, where do you live currently? I'll know then to avoid it haha.

If you don't mind me asking, where do you live currently? I'll know then to avoid it haha.

Surrey, but the people mentioned live in London.

Surrey, but the people mentioned live in London.

  That's surprising, I live in Surrey (more or less) and would fall out of my chair if I had a conversation like that.  Every third person here is from somewhere else!  I was reading this thinking you were talking about somewhere up north or in Ukipland.   

Hey!! Don’t be bashing ‘the north’! I’ve been nothing but totally welcomed or met with idle curiosity ‘up here’!!

My husband is from a very close-knot village (think league of gentlemen - which was literally the village next door) and it seems like all the blokes there have married foreign women... I know of at least four other yanks!! I’m surprised the local women-folk haven’t formed a mob chanting ‘stop stealing our menfolk’, except for the fact that I’m not because everyone has been so gracious and welcoming.

I’m sorry you haven’t experienced the same!!! It’s really not on!


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I used to pick raspberries and strawberries as a teenager, loved it! Potato picking was where the money was though but that was when school was in. 

I only found that out when we moved to a rural area and I felt very lucky to be offered a job at the local sports centre on the day my youngest started school.

Having thanked them for giving me the job, I was told that I was the only one that had applied! That all the locals knew to work as pickers where they got more money per hour and the mothers were allowed to chose their own hours. I handed in my notice. 

As pickers it was also double time if we wanted to work on Sundays and Bank holidays and we chose how many hours we wanted. It wasn't only mothers there, we had local children working weekends and holidays; Ausies and Kiwis on their Yourth Mobility visas (now called Tier 5 YMS and open to citizens of more countries) working their way around the UK and students from the univerisities, both UK students and international.

Aside - on the EU workers: Have the farmers found anyone to pick their crops for them yet?

Might make it easier for the Tier 5 (YMS) holders to get these jobs again as they travel around the UK, working for any employer as they go?
https://www.gov.uk/youth-mobility

The new Seasonal Worker visa (T5) is open to every citizen in the world, not just EEA citizens, but the visa is under the stricter UK immigration rules that most on here would have already used.

The visa will be still be perfect for all the EEA citizen workers who left family in their own country and just came to the UK to work for a few months each year, because the pay was much more than they can get in the own country.

Some EEA citizens (not all of the 30 EEA countries) can have the visa at a reduced price, but others will have to pay the full price.
https://www.gov.uk/seasonal-worker-visa

Hey!! Don’t be bashing ‘the north’! I’ve been nothing but totally welcomed or met with idle curiosity ‘up here’!!

My husband is from a very close-knot village (think league of gentlemen - which was literally the village next door) and it seems like all the blokes there have married foreign women... I know of at least four other yanks!! I’m surprised the local women-folk haven’t formed a mob chanting ‘stop stealing our menfolk’, except for the fact that I’m not because everyone has been so gracious and welcoming.

I’m sorry you haven’t experienced the same!!! It’s really not on!


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  I stand corrected, now that I think about it I've always been welcome up north as well.  I was gobsmacked at how nice people were in Liverpool. 
Sorry all you Northerners!

Might make it easier for the Tier 5 (YMS) holders to get these jobs again as they travel around the UK, working for any employer as they go?
https://www.gov.uk/youth-mobility

The new Seasonal Worker visa (T5) is open to every citizen in the world, not just EEA citizens, but the visa is under the stricter UK immigration rules that most on here would have already used.

The visa will be still be perfect for all the EEA citizen workers who left family in their own country and just came to the UK to work for a few months each year, because the pay was much more than they can get in the own country.

Some EEA citizens (not all of the 30 EEA countries) can have the visa at a reduced price, but others will have to pay the full price.
https://www.gov.uk/seasonal-worker-visa

Thanks for the info.  I was curious as to how they were going to manage.

Now to convince the EU workers to come back - I think I'd read that the seasonal workers were able to get good pay elsewhere in Europe that they hadn't been able to in previous years and that lots had just gotten fed up with the "you dirty foreigner" mistreatment and left.  I do have to say that if it were me, and I had a choice between going somewhere I was welcome and somewhere that I had to worry about being beaten up in an alley because I wasn't British, I'd take the former option if the pay was adequate. Will be interesting to see how it all shakes out.

@SWGF1 First, I'm so sorry this happened to you   And take it from someone who experienced the same weirdness (really, weird is putting all this much too lightly) moving out of the UK and back to the US was the best thing we could have done. Even though the US is its own dumpsterfire right now, we're so much happier. The same here, no one has given my husband the hard time I was given in the UK and get this, now that he's moved away, his own family thinks he shouldn't be able to have a say or vote in the UK. I had just renewed my visa when we left but totally worth abandoning it and my husband's green card was cheaper and lasted ten years vs the measley 2.5 years or whatever it is here. You both deserve better

I'm sorry that your family and "friends" are shite.  That's very hurtful.

I've been here for 15+ years.  Most people assumed that I acquired citizenship when we married and don't understand that it's actually a long and expensive process.  When I tell them that it's 5 years, 3-4 applications, and XX,XXX before someone even gets to vote in local elections most are appalled.

I sound as though I'm fresh off the boat and I get asked nearly weekly where I'm from and how I moved here.  I think it's idle curiosity and treat it as such though I don't like feeling different, depending on the situation.  A significant number of my friends, acquaintances and colleagues weren't born in the UK and when one of us gets citizenship there's always a round of drinks, card, or celebratory thing.

You need new friends immediately!  You don't choose family and they can say odd or slightly hurtful things.  I absolutely chose my friends and they are wonderful, inclusive and kind people who respect other's points of view and reconsider their own stance when differing opinions come up in conversion.  I hope and strive to be as thoughtful and considered as they are.

I'm sorry you've had this experience. Mine was completely opposite. If I ever said I'm foreign, I got 'You're not foreign, you're American!'  My colleagues decorated my desk when I got my British citizenship. The only time I ever got less than full support was from a Women's Institute member (I had been sent by work to do a promotion) and I said, 'I've got my citizenship, I'm British.' And she laughed a merry, dismissive laugh.