This is a letter to the United Kingdom. To all whom it may concern.

As I sit in my bed, in my small Edinburgh flat, next to my dog and my cat, thinking of my daughter (14) at high school and a curry is cooking on the stove. I look out the window and wonder how it could have all possibly come to this.

As a young Canadian of 26, many years ago in 2007, I stepped off the bus from the airport, ready to begin my one year working holiday visa in the UK. The weather was already changing to windy gales and I was grappling with how to count money, figure out the Lothian bus service and what a ‘white coffee’ was.

Months later, as I settled in, I would find work as a barmaid and meet the future father of my child. We fell in love and when my visa expired, we agreed to travel more of the world over the next few years, doing work visas in New Zealand and Australia.

It was in Australia that our unexpected pregnancy occurred, and while we were understanding of the complications this would bring-we were overjoyed.

We found out soon enough that being birthed in Australia does not constitute naturalization, and after many talks and deep diving into bureaucratic endeavors, we decided that we would move back to the UK and raise our daughter as a British Citizen.

Myself and her father, (born on the outskirts of Edinburgh to Glaswegian parents) were dismayed to find out upon returning to the UK in 2013 that I would need to apply for a partnership visa, and this would need to be done by myself in Canada. They did take pity on us and let me stay on a family 3 month visa so we could get through my daughters second Christmas as a family.

I packed my bags and went back to Canada with our daughter, and waited the 4 months it took to get my partnership visa approved. This took its toll on both of our lives and our relationship, but in the end, I was coming back.

I arrived in 2014 and the next year was rocky. Bereavements, financial disaster and the strain of uprooting again and again among other personal matters wound up breaking down our relationship. I still remember the dismayed looks on his parents’ faces when we said we would be splitting up.

But her father and I vowed to stay together in the UK and raise our daughter as a family. Having experienced so many friends and personal struggles relating to broken homes, we both agreed that our daughter would know nothing but a loving, caring family.

We agreed that I would move out and we would co-parent, living close to each other and remaining friends and allies-believe me, that wasn’t easy. But we did it for our daughter.

This was the beginning of my solo journey to try and forge a life for myself in the UK. Through all of the emotional turmoil and grief over the breakup, I got a bartending job and secured a small flat within a few months, with a bit of assistance from my mother (who had always lived hand to mouth) and my ex partner. But mostly on my own.

The lawyers fees were hefty; I would need to change my visa to a parental visa, which, by the time all of it had been signed on the dotted line, meant that my time as a ‘leave to remain’ visa holder would start all over again. The lawyers would write a letter to the Home office stating that the 10 year path to residency was not applicable and that I should have been applying for the typical 5 year route…this was taken on board initially but ultimately rejected due to the home office’s opinion that I didn’t ‘make enough money’, despite the fact that I made more than the living wage.

We had already spent thousands and there was no scope for the £4-600 it would take for an appeal. So on the ten year path I stayed.

For those of you who don’t know, the ten year path to residency means that every 2.5 years, I need to reapply for Leave To Remain, and pay thousands of pounds to the UK government in order for me to be able to work. I had no recourse to public funds, and zero assistance for my young daughter.

So I grafted.

Throughout the course of those ten years, I worked. I worked day shifts and night shifts, taking extra work whenever I could and all the while trying to find any university or college course that was affordable to help me get ahead and follow my dream of being a support worker, and perhaps one day, a counsellor.

As luck would have it, a counselling course I did offered its students a one time opportunity to go to Glasgow University for a counselling degree at a discounted rate.

Between my mother and I, we scraped together the money and in between working a full time bar job, volunteering at a local homeless support service and eventually securing a full time roles as a support worker in the roughest part of Edinburgh (while still keeping the part time role at the pub), I worked through that degree online, in all of the spare time I had when I wasn’t caring for my daughter, which was at night.

During this time I was still volunteering 1-1 support work to alcohol dependent individuals through Rowan Alba, a dedicated service to housing and supporting the homeless for whom I had done a full time role for almost two years while still working the pub and going to college. I was very, very busy.

When Scottish Women’s Aid launched their 24 hour telephone line for those suffering from domestic abuse and forced marriage-I moved roles and was one of 4 first employees of this new service. At this stage I was still studying, working at Women’s Aid during the day, and working the pub at night. My partner and I had to make a tight rota for when I could see my daughter outwith all of that work. It was not ideal, but it had to be done.

I graduated at the top of my class in 2019 and secured a counselling degree from Glasgow Caledonian. At that stage I had also gone to work as a volunteer at the Social Bite Village from before it was even built (I did tours of the example home in St Andrew’s square) which quickly turned into a paid job as a support worker. I also ran cooking classes every Tuesday and Thursday

I was, of course, still working the pubs, and added restaurant work during the fringe festival to make ends meet. I didn’t think there was ever a time where I didn’t have 3-4 jobs.

After I graduated, a wonderful opportunity arose for me to join The Action Group as a trainer to support workers who had been in my shoes. This was my big break and though I had to continue working a second job, my life security began to get better. I even started my own training business on the side, two years ago, and I had been gaining traction.

My daughter had her ups and downs at primary school but went on to flourish at high school, making friends and securing her place among the most gifted and kind of students. She knew nothing but love from her father and I, through all of the years, different relationships and ups and downs. No matter what, we always spent Christmas together, every year.

Her father and I never spoke an ill word about each other, even when we were angry at this or that. Our daughter knew nothing but love and respect from us, and this has been reflected into the brilliant young woman she has turned into.

Meanwhile the ten year part of my visa was coming to an end. I knew that soon I would be able to apply for citizenship.

July of this year was when this was supposed to happen. I did what I thought were all the right things-changing my biometrics permit to an online UKVI system and getting all of the documentation ready.

When it came time to fill in the citizenship form, I marveled at how easy it was. How long they had come from cumbersome paperwork to an easy to fill in form which was pretty straightforward. All those years of renewing and paying and jumping through hoops would now be over. All I had to do was pay £2000 and get my fingerprints done, and write the ‘Life in the UK’ test. I was so ecstatic to know that soon I would become a citizen of the country I have called home for so long, and adored.

The email came last Tuesday.

Your application for UK citizenship has been declined.

I was at work at the time. My heart jumped into my stomach. How? What? What went wrong?

I called a helpline, and a very tired sounding person snapped that I had filled in the wrong form and ticked a box I shouldn’t have. This meant that my visa was now expired and I am now considered an illegal alien.

Furthermore, I had to inform my work immediately that I could no longer work. My income had been erased in one stroke. I have no savings.

More lawyers. ‘You made a big mistake, they said’ ‘You ticked that you had Indefinite Leave to Remain and you don’t. You only have Leave to Remain. You should have called a lawyer to help you, you filled in the wrong form, now you are in very big trouble. ‘Surely’, I said, ‘we can reapply with the right form’. I was met with a sympathetic but abrupt-’that is a different department and make no mistake-they don’t care about you. Like, I said, you are in trouble.’

And am I ever, in big trouble. Between lawyers fees and the new visa, which, by the way, will re-start my 10 year path to residency, will cost £6000. I don’t even have enough money to pay my next month's rent.

I have had a complete mental breakdown which has caused my daughter to have to go and stay with her father full time temporarily (we have not told her any of this) while I try and figure out what the hell I’m going to do.

My entire livelihood has been stripped from under me because of a clerical error on my part, no doubt, but let me paint a picture for you.

July was a terrible month for me. I had been supporting a homeless man who wound up robbing me (yes the police were involved) and one of my close colleagues died. My relationship was going through a hard time and we are still trying to work it out. I made some reckless decisions thinking I was helping a person that wound up manipulating me (yes, it happens to all of us) and I got barely any sleep at this time. I had always prided myself on being able to survive on 3-4 hours of sleep per night, often I had no choice. But it all slowly caught up to me. So yes, I will put my hand up and say that I was not at my mental best when I was filling in these visa forms.

But you know what? Whoever looked at my file, and all the time I’ve been here, and all the work I’ve done,could see, knew the mistake I made, and stamped my future in red without a care or concern for the human life/lives it would affect. My work has been given the horrible task of telling me I have until October 31st to prove that I have reapplied for a visa or I will be permanently out of a job.

I’ve spent the last 10 years working 4+ jobs, feeding and caring for the homeless, the abused, the forgotten, and of course, people just like me who were dealt a difficult hand at life. I fought to get a homeless woman into college with success. I watched colleagues of mine who grafted as much as I did, either go on to succeed, or die for the cause. I’ve run into people I supported on the street, proudly telling me they started college, or a job as a manager of a big name hotel, or just had a one year anniversary of being clean, with a new baby. I’ve watched the most vulnerable among us pick themselves up from rock bottom and been in awe and inspired by them. I’ve watched some of them not make it at all.

I have been indoctrinated into British culture. I love pub quizzes, QI and The Detectorists. I measure time by cups of tea and I am part of a community. I know my neighbours, the pub owners, shopkeepers, teachers, priests and the homeless. I have sat in the rain on the phone trying to get a woman my age into a shelter, realizing that’s all I could do. I’ve run workshops and cooking groups, I’ve given time, energy and generosity to those who have needed it most, and in return, I have been given untold gifts of support and love from my colleagues and friends. We’ve laughed and cried at the pub, lived through COVID and uncertainty, births and deaths and everything in between. I live here.

I’ve been to weddings and funerals, I’ve battled with my own mental health and the mental health of those closest to me. I have sacrificed precious time with my daughter so I could keep a roof over my head BY MYSELF with no help. And this is the Great Britain I belong to.

I now face joining the homeless that I used to support. Wild horses could not drag me away from my daughter. And somehow, my 83 year old mother is forced to remortgage her little two bedroom bungalow in Canada that she paid off by herself, so that I can pay for these lawyers fees.

I simply ask you this-

Is this the Great Britain you are proud of?