Britain's Home Office is being taken to the High Court after stripping almost 1,500 European Union citizens of their full right to live in the UK, telling them that the pre-settled status granted to them after Brexit had been awarded in error, The Guardian reported.

Source: The English Chronicle

The campaign group the3million lodged court papers on Friday, November 6, arguing that the department breached the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement when it removed all or part of those people's rights without giving them the safeguards the agreement guarantees.

The group is asking the court to declare the Home Office's 'granted in error' policy unlawful — on the grounds that it breaches the Withdrawal Agreement and common law — and to order the removal of the offending parts of the published policy.

The figure of 1,473 comes from the Home Office itself: in a written parliamentary answer on September 24, minister Lord Hanson of Flint told Liberal Democrat peer Lord German that local records showed 1,473 people had been notified, covering cases from the start of the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) to June 30, 2026. The department said the figure comes from manual records and may be revised.

Source: UK-ETA / parliamentary record

How the 'granted in error' policy works

Receiving a 'granted in error' notice does not cancel a person's current status on the spot. Pre-settled status stays valid until its existing expiry date, but the Home Office will not extend it, and the holder loses the right to sponsor family members under the scheme. Holders of settled status keep that status but lose the family-sponsorship right immediately. The3million argues that because the department has already decided these people are not Withdrawal Agreement beneficiaries, they get no formal decision, no proportionality assessment and no right of appeal — protections that do apply when the Home Office removes the status of someone it accepts was correctly granted.

Source: the3million

Watchdog warned of a possible treaty breach

The Independent Monitoring Authority (IMA), the statutory watchdog set up after Brexit to oversee citizens' rights, has told the Home Office that the policy may be incompatible with the Withdrawal Agreement — it has pointed to Articles 13(4) and 21 of the agreement. The3million's lawyers at Wilson Solicitors, with barristers from Garden Court Chambers, sent the Home Office a pre-action letter in August, the formal step before a judicial review, and the group says it knows of at least 50 affected cases.

One strand of the dispute concerns people born with Italian nationality that Italy recognised only later. Home Office caseworkers had dated their Italian citizenship from the day Italy documented it, which in some cases fell after the December 31, 2020 eligibility cutoff. The department shifted its position in October 2026, accepting that a person who can show evidence of Italian citizenship acquired by descent — known as jure sanguinis — will be treated as Italian from birth, and it had already conceded in one individual case.

The human stakes are visible in cases reported by The Guardian: an Italian engineer who has lived in London since 2018 keeps his settled status but stands to lose the right to have his wife live with him, and an NHS worker who received a notice fears losing her job and possibly the right to rent her home. Monique Hawkins, acting chief executive of the3million, criticised the Home Office's approach, arguing that affected individuals are being denied essential legal protections because the department has already decided they are not covered by the Withdrawal Agreement.

The EU Settlement Scheme was created to uphold the Withdrawal Agreement, protecting the residence rights of eligible EU, EEA and Swiss citizens and qualifying family members who were living in the UK by December 31, 2020. The Home Office has declined to comment on the allegations, saying legal proceedings are ongoing.