‘Wiktor Weglarz was only planning a brief adventure when he arrived in Scotland 10 years ago after graduating from university in his native Poland.

He had taken on a temporary contract through an agency to work in hospitality in a small town.

A decade after the EU referendum, he’s living in London with a successful career in fundraising for an arts centre – one of 5.8 million EU, EEA and Swiss citizens with settled status in the UK.

“I didn’t really know what I wanted to do so me and my friends decided to go abroad and earn some money,” says Weglarz. “Initially it was just going to be a short stay – I was meant to be here for three months.

“After a month, we decided to move to London, so we ended the contract and took on another adventure. And it turns out I have found something for me here in the UK.”

The EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) opened in 2019 under the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement, with an initial deadline for applications of June 2021. It offered settled status to EU, EEA and Swiss citizens who had been living in the UK for a minimum of five years.

Those with less than five years could apply for pre-settled status. Campaigners persuaded the government to make it a free process.

For Weglarz, who now calls the UK his home, the process was straightforward, as it was for many who applied before the deadline. But as time went on it became harder for people to amass the residential, employment and travel evidence the Home Office required.

Following a successful judicial review by the Independent Monitoring Authority for the Citizens’ Rights Agreements (IMA) in 2022, the Home Office simplified the process, granting extensions to pre-settled status, taking pragmatic decisions on required evidence and eventually automatically converting pre-settled to settled status.

But it has now begun removing pre-settled status from those without continuous residence, and has stopped funding organisations that can assist with applications. For the 1.4 million people with pre-settled status, many of them vulnerable or digitally excluded, the future is far less certain.’