British man's wife urges Burnham to stop husband's removal

The Swedish wife of a British man detained by police in Stockholm on Tuesday ahead of a planned deportation has urged UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham to intervene in the post-Brexit difficulties facing British citizens in Sweden.

Charles, whose surname is being withheld, and his Swedish wife Lily, were called to the police station at 10am on Tuesday. There, he was informed he would be held at a detention centre and deported within two weeks.

Lily, a lawyer, was instructed to return home and retrieve his passport, despite her objections that a court appeal against the deportation order was already in progress.

"I feel shame," said Lily, who requested that her family's surname not be published. "To me, Britain represents freedom for human beings, and then to see this British man in detention just because he wants to be with his wife and live in his own house, this is not right.

"What kind of country are we living in? Is this civilisation? They don't care about human rights. This is a European country, but it looks like Sweden is becoming like Afghanistan."

Lily met her husband in the UK after beginning a law degree in London in 2010. She now works for Stockholm's local authority and returned to Sweden in 2015, with Charles joining her in 2017, three years before Brexit.

Charles, a retired former business consultant, applied for settled status before the post-Brexit deadline. His application was rejected in 2022, and the family has since mounted "six or seven" appeals against deportation. "The Migration Agency has hunted us for five years," Lily said.

During the summer, the couple received a text instructing them to appear at their local police station on 1 September. "They told us they needed to talk and we should show up at 10am. They didn't say anything about deportation or to bring passports. When we arrived they told us that they needed to talk to Charles privately, and after three hours they told me they were taking him to the detention centre and that they would deport him. I told them that they can't do this because his case is in court and they have to wait for the outcome, but they told me they were going ahead."

Lily has called on Burnham to act. "Why can't Andy Burnham talk to the Swedish government? How many British families have to suffer in Sweden before Andy Burnham gets involved? How many families have to leave their homes, be forced into selling their houses? This is not humanity. This is not right. They should threaten the trade agreement."

Charles's case comes amid mounting criticism of Sweden's handling of the withdrawal agreement, which was intended to protect EU citizens in the UK and British citizens settled in the bloc before Brexit.