It’s time the UK gave Ukrainian refugees proper settlement rights — including a pathway to ILR
These people have now been in the UK for nearly 5 years. They didn’t choose to leave their homes they were forced out by a full-scale war that is still ongoing with no clear end in sight.
Many Ukrainians here are working, paying taxes, learning English, enrolling their kids in schools, universities and genuinely integrating into communities across the country. Yet they’re still living on temporary visas with no certainty about their future. That’s not fair, and it’s not good policy.
Why other so called refugees from other countries have lived the same amount of time and also have ILR and getting their citizenships with their B1 English language level.
The Ukrainian people are really really nice and hardworking and will definitely contribute really well to our society.
The current scheme gives them no long-term security. Landlords are reluctant to rent to them. Employers are hesitant to invest in them. Banks make things difficult. All because of a temporary status that could theoretically end. These aren’t abstract problems they affect real people’s daily lives.
Offering a clear pathway to Indefinite Leave to Remain for Ukrainians who have been here a certain number of years, are self-sufficient, and have integrated into British society is the right and humane thing to do.
We welcomed them. We should follow through.
What does everyone think? Should the UK offer Ukrainians a proper long-term settlement route? What can we do to help it?
Five years. No home to return to. No certainty to stay. If that was your family, you wouldn’t call it temporary. You’d call it limbo. And we put them there.
They’re your neighbours, your colleagues, the parent at the school gate, the nurse who looked after your nan. They rebuilt their lives here from nothing, with nothing guaranteed. They asked for so little and gave so much back.
A five minute email to your MP could change that. Not a protest. Not a march. Just five minutes of your time against five years of their uncertainty.
You can go to WriteToThem.com, type in your postcode, and just say you want Ukrainians who’ve been here five years to have settlement. That’s it. One message. Real lives hanging in the balance.
And if you won’t do it for politics — do it for people. Because that’s all this ever was.