British or polish Passport ' Advice feedback

Trust me dtaylor Not everyone has an easy upbringing as a child and mine is not like most children that grow up with there mumy an dady ,

As for the area i live The young polish guy who got knifed an killed recently is 15 minutes from my home '

As for my knife wounds it was all about growing up 'if your in street fights from the age of 9 then your going to get shot or stabbed sooner or later i was lucky 'it was a lesson to

go with a long list of lessons but i was very young back then .

Living poland no i have never lived in Poland ' But i have been halway around the globe to some real **** hole places where poverty is like something u may have never seen ' Middle east' asia' india

I don't exspect it to be all modern an by far the food is much better unless your living on that fine polish bacon .

Exactly, Its not the UK per say, plus this kinda of thing goes on at the same level as the UK in Poland.

every parent says that...

It is down to the parent what you feed your child. Feed them well from the outset and teach them from the "good and bad" and they will eat good food. If you are going to be such a good parent, I am sure you can manage how to teach this fact whether you are in England, Poland, or at the back end of this earth!!

My boyfriend is after applying for British Passport. He is already a UK Citizen and has lived in England for 7 years. We are wondering which way to go about it and how much.

My partner and I had a child in the last year and he was born with a british passprot as that is more valuableand we want the best future for him

Quite. The UK does have more diplomatic posts around the world compared to Poland. But they need to. So many traveling Brits regularly run foul of local laws and end up banged up abroad that there is always a high demand for consular services.

they dont include costs of local legal services:)

This is true. But this Kevvy poster seems to think a British passport is something akin to celebrity status which will instantly open doors all around an envious world with lots of freebies thrown your way if you happen to have one. Not so.

As you know a passport itself is simply a travel document. Britain may have certain visa waiver agreements with some particular countries which Poland currently does not. But such agreements are always being negotiated on.

The British passport only seems alluring to some because of the rise in its usage over the past few decades. But this usage is directly attributed to political decisions and economic policies which lead to a better exchange rate for the British pound over other currencies (usually to the great detriment of other sectors in Britain's economy but I'll digress on that point). Added to this has been the advent of cheap travel fares for the masses due to deregulations and fierce competition. However, exchange rates and travel costs are cyclical and any advantages these command today in the market place can evaporate tomorrow.

A British passport itself doesn't guarantee employment or access to better or free health and legal services while traveling with it. At best having one entitles such a national to have someone from their country's consular section come visit them in hospital or jail. But such visits usually are more of a data gathering exercise for their own statistical reports they file away rather than to actually do anything to help their fellow national out of their predicament. And as I mentioned the UK has more places where one of their nationals can at least cry for help even if it is to no avail. For example, just look at the convicted British pedophile Gary Glitter. Having a British passport certainly didn't get him out from rightfully serving a prison sentence in Vietnam or prevent him from being deported.

Some passports are still much more desirable than others. The black market price for stolen ones reflects that.

Ah, so a British passport is valued by the criminal underworld along with trafficking such items as drugs, human slaves, weapons, etc.

I hear you. Still you provide another reason not to be proud to own one. Furthermore in some situations having a British passport can be extremely to ones disadvantage. Who is more likely to be singled out, kidnapped for ransom, or killed on a hijacked plane or in far-flung war torn area of the globe? Someone waving a British passport around or someone who can produce a Polish passport?

The choice is obvious.

Don't be silly. The facts speak for themselves.

And who's talking about kidnapping?

You'd be doubtless dismayed at the number of Poles who've gone to the UK who are queuing for a British passport for themselves and especially for their kids at the earliest opportunity.

In my work, I hire people from many countries in the world. People with certain passports are at a definite disadvantage since above a certain level in the company people have to attend meetings in different countries. Not much point hiring someone if they have to apply for a visa for a 3 day business trip.

Oh dear someone has chip on their shoulder I feel....

Neither passport is better than the other as it depends on what country you are wanting to visit. For instance my Polish partner and I are traveling to the US, it is a lot easier for myself with a British passport to get the Visa. However if we were traveling to Russia for instance it would be a lot harder for me to get the visa.

"Who is more likely to be singled out, kidnapped for ransom, or killed on a hijacked plane or in far-flung war torn area of the globe? Someone waving a British passport around or someone who can produce a Polish passport?" That is one view the other is that the British passport will pay whilst you may has well shoot the Polish one as they will not, I am sure that is what you were meaning Bieganski?

Quite. Gary Glitter indeed!

I'm in a similar situation to you, except the places we want to travel to are restricted by my partner's passport. A nuisance.

In that case get a Polish passport for him too. More passports is usually better (although you do need to take care with some of them). A British passport certainly gives access to more countries without visas than a Polish one (and better visa options in many others too, such as working holiday visas in Australia), but having a second passport is rarely a bad thing.


If you'd ever lived abroad, you'd know that the foreigners in pretty much any city in the world can tell you that by far the worst consular services offered to citizens. As I said years ago here: The consensus view from Brits in Warsaw is that if they were laying in the driveway of the British embassy bleeding to death, the only reason that staff would call security to have you removed is so they could get their cars in and out.

By the way, before you do finally leave America, you might want to learn what consulates can and cannot do. Fortunately, so many of your fellow Americans get arrested in Mexico that the US consulate has found it necessary to produce a special "Guide of US citizens arrested in Mexico", have a read, it's a good laugh:

tijuana.usconsulate.gov/root/pdfs/telegalcriminalguide.pdf


These days the photo on a stolem British passport can be one of the most important factors when it comes to the value of it.


Yes, but the answer to that problem is much the same as the reason why one doesn't need to worry about out-running a lion when on safari. All one needs to worry about running faster than is one's fellow tourists, so it's a great idea to go on safari with fat people: they can't run fast and make far more attractive targets to lions. In the same way all one would need to do is to travel with people such as you, Bieganski: people who can only produce an American passport (given the way terrorists around the world focus in on Americans and Israelis).

My kids are now 14 and 12. They were born over here (Poland) to a Polish mother and I never bothered registering them in Britain. Last year, I decided to get them British passports - it's now done through Liverpool. Downloaded the forms off the internet, filled them in, got a professional (university lecturer) to do the witnessing of the photos and sent them off with birth certificates, marriage certificates, their Polish passports etc. All the documents were returned in about a week and the new passports arrived about a week after that. The witness wasn't contacted and the whole thing was very easy. So, they now have two sets of passports.

I don't know how it would work the other way round ie if they were born in the UK and then came to Poland but rest assured, there is no problem with them being born in Poland.

I got my kids polish passports in 2000,ofcourse they were very young then,and now when my son grew up and got a job he had serious problems for getting top security clearance in the usa because of his polish passport/citizenship which is not a joke to leave been almost 11/2 year he filed an application to the president by voivodship and no answer yet.And the security clearance is pending till he has a confirmed letter even though the passport has expired.I wonder if people have same problems having polish and british passports?