Brexit Britons rush to obtain dual nationality

Ireland, Spain and other European countries say twice as many Brits applied for dual citizenship in the 12 months after the Brexit vote compared to the previous year.

Ireland saw the biggest rise, with more than 64,000 British nationals applying for passports after the referendum compared to just over 25,000 the previous year, the BBC reports.

Next in line was Spain, with 4,558 applying for dual citizenship compared to 2,300 before the Brexit vote. Other European countries that provided data to the BBC also saw applications rising including Sweden (from 969 to 2,002), Denmark (from 289 to 604) and Poland (from 152 to 332).

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“Many people are taking precautionary steps in case the Brexit negotiations fail,” the BBC says.

Official German figures released in June show an “extraordinary increase” in the number of British citizens granted German passports in 2016, Deutsche Welle said.

The number of Brits granted German citizenship in 2016 rose 361% to 2,865 – “quite obviously due to Brexit”, said the German statistics office.

“In Germany, Brits have been scrambling to get citizenship, which they seem to see as an insurance policy,” DW said.

There’s also been a push for Europeans to obtain UK passports. German, French, Italians and other members of the 14 original EU countries are at the front of the queue for British dual citizenship.

Home Office figures show just under 14,000 people from the group applied in the year to June 2017, compared with about 4,500 in the year to June 2015, the Daily Express reports.