Brexit stole my disabled child: a mother’s story that went viral gets corrected
The story went big. The Guardian comment piece about a mother and her disabled son remaining in the UK post Brexit gained more than 16,000 shares. “People didn’t vote leave for my son to be separated from his mother,” floats the headline about an article by Anna Maria Tuckett. Not that without a People’s Vote we can know for certain if she’s right. But let’s hear her out and assume most of us don’t approve of the State wrenching a mother from her disabled child. “I’m a full-time carer for my disabled son,” Tuckett adds. “What will happen if I’m denied settled status in the UK and have to return to Poland?”
The question might be rhetorical. If it’s not, you may care to without answering until the full facts are known. Happily, after publication and the story going viral, the Guardian bothered to check it:
This update was added on 20 February 2019: In wake of publication of this article, the home office challenged the accuracy of several assertions in the piece. Some amendments were made, and are explained in the footnote below; the following statement from a home office spokesperson is also being inserted here: “The basis of this article is fundamentally wrong. We have made clear that EU citizens will not be refused status under the EU Settlement Scheme because, for example, they are economically inactive. The application only has three key steps – to prove your identity, to prove that you are living here, and to declare any criminal convictions.” Information on funding for help to apply has been included in the footnote.]
FOOTNOTE:
• Anna Maria Tuckett is a former journalist, writer and full-time carer
• This article was amended on 19 and 20 February 2019 to clarify who warned the author she was “unlikely to qualify for citizenship”: in this case, friends and migration think tanks, as distinct from any government official (no residence application having yet been made, as the story later says). A subheading has been corrected because it wrongly stated that UK settled status could be denied “because” the author is a home-based carer. A paragraph has been deleted because it incorrectly quoted the home secretary, Sajid Javid, as saying EU citizens seeking to stay in Britain would have to prove they have been “assets” to the British economy. A home office statement added that: “We have made up to £9 million of funding available to voluntary and community sector organisations to help us reach more vulnerable or at-risk EU citizens and their family members directly to help them get the status they need.”
To recap: can we have a second read?
Posted: 23rd, February 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
