SWEDEN has long been regarded by the liberal elite as a socialist utopia. The truth is that, behind the facade, the Swedish deep state is as unpleasant and brutal as some other Western countries.
My Swedish wife and I discovered this to our cost when we tried to secure residency for me, her retired British husband. What followed has shocked even the most patriotic of Swedes and has given the lie to any kind of notion that modern ‘liberal democracies’ have either heart or moral conscience.
My wife and I met eight years ago. I was a captain for a Scandinavian airline based at London Gatwick and she was a teacher in Stockholm. Our common bond is our humour and a love of wildlife. She is a keen amateur photographer.
We were inseparable from the outset, and she left her job so we could spend as much time together as possible by travelling from Sweden to UK and vice versa. We married in Stockholm City Hall several years ago.
We chose to live in Sweden primarily because my wife has a very sick daughter who is increasingly reliant upon her mother. Her daughter receives state-funded care but my wife looks after her day-to-day needs.
For the past eight years we’ve battled the travelling restrictions during the covid event, the introduction of Brexit rules and the unexpected loss of my job, but nothing prepared us for the illogical hostility, unfairness and utterly inhumane treatment at the hands of Sweden Migration following our application for my Swedish residency.
What we thought would be a fairly simple process has revealed, after two applications denied then refused at appeal, that Sweden ignores the Human Rights Act and EU law, justifying repeated refusals with absurd and contrived excuses. Decisions have been made against us in the face of facts. This has been utterly devastating and now our very marriage is under threat.
Yesterday was my wife’s 65th birthday and tomorrow is my 69th. We are dreading Wednesday when we will be separated by the visa rules for another 90 days as I return to the UK. I must leave my wife behind so that she can look after her daughter and also attend her Aunt’s funeral. Several months apart looms again.
What sort of civilised society does this to pensioners? The reasons they have given for my repeated residency denials are bizarre and ignore every permitted exemption.
The Swedish authorities have argued that my identity could not be established even though they issued a Swedish marriage licence. They ignored their own aviation authorities’ approval granted to me that I used to examine Swedish airline pilots. They argued our relationship is unproven and could not be established, ignoring that we have provided our Swedish marriage certificate, details of our wedding, all travel documents for eight years, all passport stamps, all bills in Sweden paid by me for eight years, all covid jabs both in UK and Sweden, personal photographs from eight years together, envelopes addressed to each at the ‘opposite address’ and all financial details. Not only this, they refused to answer how an ‘established relationship’ is defined.
We were astounded to see in their summary that ‘we should have checked with Swedish Migration my migration status before we commenced a relationship’ even though this was before Brexit. Outrageously, they told us to ‘continue our marriage digitally’ and that ‘there is no need for a married couple to live in the same country’, thus ignoring my wife’s caring responsibilities.
It is clearly disproportionate to require us to live in separate countries at our age. Either they didn’t read any of our submissions or they just ignored them. Incredibly they even seem unaware in one denial that my wife was born in Sweden, thinking she came to Sweden in 1988. The level of incompetence and laziness is breath-taking.
Sweden argues that my wife has to support me yet refuses to consider our joint financial assets or my UK pensions and savings without a joint account in Sweden (which requires residency).
Sweden has a more ageist culture than Britain so my wife at 65 is unable to find work, yet has to care for her adult daughter.
Paradoxically, if my wife was claiming any Swedish state benefits, my presence, regardless of marriage, would result in her benefits being immediately cancelled. In plain terms, they refuse to let us support each other.
Sweden has disregarded EU law and the Human Rights Act which states that we have a right to a private and family life.
In our case exemptions should be made when it is ‘disproportionate to deny a residence permit’ and that ‘there are special reasons to fully waive the maintenance requirement’ ie ‘health reasons prevent work, family separation would cause unreasonable consequences or the sponsor cannot realistically meet the requirement’. All three apply here. The irony is that as my wife is an EU citizen we have automatic right of residency in any EU country except Sweden.
Our Swedish friends and my wife’s many relatives are appalled at the treatment we have received from Sweden and the total disregard for our human rights. Our lawyer knows that the Swedish authorities have failed to observe their own processes but we have run up against a judicial system which appears to operate in name only.
Here is a shocking double standard: at Christmas it was reported that ‘an Iraqi citizen raped a 100-year-old woman in a Stockholm care home but was not deported on the basis that he has strong ties to the country’.
A law-abiding retired professional couple are denied the right to spend their twilight years together while a brutal foreign rapist is favoured by the system.
Issues of migration are terrible in the UK but Sweden is leading the rotten culture of human rights without human decency coupled with state duplicity. Sweden is also a controlled state with police-issued identity card and bank ID assigned at birth. It is a harbinger of the UK’s future unless we deal with threats caused by inverted human rights, digital ID and central bank digital currency.
Sweden is destroying us, our retirement, our health and our marriage; do they prefer violent criminals as residents?
