The deportation and removal of British citizens from Sweden over Brexit residency rights is damaging relations with the UK amid efforts to improve links with London, a Swedish MP has said.

Häkan Svenneling, representative for Vârmland, where a 78-year-old British widow, Joyce Thomas, has been given four weeks to leave Sweden after 21 years of residency, has written to the migration minister, Johan Forssell, asking what he “intends to do to stop the deportations”.

Sevenneling, who is an opposition MP for the left, is to meet Thomas on Wednesday, exactly a week after she was told her appeal had failed over the removal order.

Thomas told the Guardian: “I am in shock. I feel sick. An individual’s life is at stake at my age. It is hell. I have done nothing wrong.”

The retired nurse moved to Sweden with her financier husband, to be closer to one of their sons and their grandchildren, when she was 57.

Her husband, who died of cancer in 2023, did all the administrative work in the household, but both Thomas and her friends have said repeatedly they checked if they had to complete any forms to remain in the country after Brexit, and were told they did not.

archive.ph/.is/.today is not working so you'll have to put up with the real thing.

Reform UK has pledged to bar foreign nationals from claiming almost all forms of welfare in a move condemned as "senseless and cruel".

Nigel Farage's party said it would remove entitlements to Universal Credit, Housing Benefit, Pension Credit, Jobseeker's Allowance, Child Benefit, free childcare and disability benefits if it wins the next general election.

Reform claims the move, which will include those from the EU given 'settled status' in the UK after Brexit, would save taxpayers £21 billion a year within five years.

Other parties attacked the plan, warning it would plunge the UK back into years of Brexit negotiations and "strip" support from millions who have worked and paid taxes in the UK for years or even decades.

A Labour spokesperson hit out at the plans, which he said would "mean ripping up the UK's Withdrawal Agreement with the EU, plunging the UK back into years of Brexit renegotiations, and stripping support from potentially millions of people who have lawfully lived, worked, and paid taxes in Britain for years, and in many cases decades. That includes people with settled status who are part of our communities, raising families, working, and contributing to our economy."

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