February 2025: Nicole Hoellerer & Katharine Charsley published the piece ‘Are the UK’s immigration rules forcing couples into marriage?‘ with the Migration Mobilities Bristol (MMB) Blog (University of Bristol). Read the blog post here.
January 2025: Helena Wray appeared on Radio Télévision Suisse (Switzerland) radio to discuss the impact of Brexit on UK-EU couples – Listen to ‘Les amours contrariées par le Brexit‘ (in French).
January 2025: Katharine Charsley from the Brexit Couples Team features in the BBC News article “Family visa rules are ‘a tax on love’, says MP”.
January 2025: Katharine Charsley from the Brexit Couples Team spoke on the BBC Radio Bristol Breakfast show about the family immigration system (20/01/2025; segment starts 2:45:21)
2024
December 2024: We have published an interim project report with some of our research findings. Read the report here.
December 2024: We submitted to the Migration Advisory Committee’s call for evidence on Family Visa Financial Requirements. Read our submission here.
November 2024: Katharine Charsley attended the Common Ground Conference, an event that brought together together EU citizens’ civic society organisations and campaigners in the UK. Read more here.
October 2024: We took part of the latest meeting for EUROMEC – the EU delegation to the UK’s Ethnic Minority Citizens’ Monitoring Network. Read more here.
October 2024: Helena Wray spoke at the Leicester Somali Festival. Read more here.
July 2024: Katharine Charsley (and Nicole Hoellerer) presented the paper “Brexit Couples: UK-EU Couples and Experiential Migrantisation in the UK Spouse/Partner Immigration Regime” at 21st IMISCOE Annual Conference, hosted by the University Institute of Lisbon.
June 2024: Katharine Charsley organised a workshop on migrantisation at the University of Bristol, with experts from various institutions.
June 2024: Brexit Couples Project Policy Brief 2: UK General Election 2024 – Family Migration in Election Manifestos (June 2024) (here)
June 2024: Nicole Hoellerer & Katharine Charsley presented the paper “Migrantisation and exceptionalism narratives of UK-EU couples” at the European Migrants in the UK in the Brexit Era: Discursive Approaches Symposium, organised by the University of Liverpool.
March 2024: We have published our second newsletter, with updates on the increase of the Minimum Income Requirement (MIR) for partner migration . See the newsletter here, and subscribe to our newsletters here.
March 2024: Katharine Charsley & Helena Wray published the piece ‘Instead of separating thousands more families – rethink UK family migration policies‘ with the Migration Mobilities Bristol (MMB) Blog (University of Bristol). Read the blog post here.
March 2024: Katharine Charsley attended the strategy day for European ethnic minority citizens in the UK, hosted by the EU delegation in the UK. Read more here.
March 2024: The Brexit Couples Team participated in the University of Exeter’s Routes Workshop ‘Exploiting mobility: governments, law and the intrumentalisation of movement’.
January 2024: Katharine Charsley & Helena Wray have submitted a briefing on the increase of the Minimum Income Requirement (MIR) for partner migration for the Home Affairs Select Committee (28 January 2024). You can read the briefing here.
2023
December 2023: We have published our first newsletter, summarising our work in 2023, and sharing news. See the newsletter here, and subscribe to our newsletters here.
December 2023: Katharine Charsley & Helena Wray published the piece ‘Just the rich can do it: Our research shows how immigration income requirements devastate families’ in The Conversation on the recent UK government announcement to more than double the Minimum Income Requirement for family (spouse/partner) visas. Read the article here.
November 2023: Helena Wray gave a talk ‘Invisible Families: Who counts in the European Court of Human Rights migration jurisprudence?’ (panel: State definitions of the good family, moderated by Betty de Hart) at the conference ‘Strange(r) Families: Political contestation over family and nation in migration regimes’ at the University of Amsterdam.
November 2023: Helena Wray participated in the ‘Who do we think we are?’ podcast series hosted by MigZen, talking about ‘Families at the border‘ and historical development of family migration laws. Listen here.
November 2023: Katharine Charsley gave a talk ‘Kept Apart: temporality, migrantisation and family separation in the UK family immigration system’ at the ‘Deportability and the family’ seminar by the Migration Institute of Finland (Turku).
September 2023: The Brexit Couples Project Team published their first policy brief ‘UK-EU Couples after Brexit‘.
July 2023: Nicole Hoellerer presented on ‘UK-EU couples after Brexit: Migrantisation and the UK family immigration regime’ at the 20th IMISCOE Annual Conference 2023, University of Warsaw (hybrid – presentation online)
May 2023: Helena Wray wrote a blog titled ‘Love After Brexit: UK-EU Couples and the British Immigration System‘ for UK in a changing Europe, highlighting how the UK’s family migration policies will impact a new group – EU citizens without settled or pre-settled status in relationships with British citizens and residents.
April 2023: Katharine Charsley gave a plenary in the Families and Relationships Stream of the British Sociological Association Annual Conference 2023. The title of the plenary was ‘Kept Apart: couples separated by the UK family immigration regime’. Drawing on earlier research, the plenary also introduced the Brexit Couples project.
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