After years of protests and lobbying, including highly visible advocacy by popular television actress Joanna Lumley, Nepalese Gurkha soldiers who served in the British military have won the right to settle in Britain.
The Gurkhas have served in the British army since 1815 and 13 of them have been awarded the Victoria Cross, the country’s highest civilian honor. The Gurkha Brigade, which comprised over 100,000 Gurkhas during World Wars I and II, presently numbers 3,800.
An estimated 100,000 Gurkha veterans have been denied residency rights in Britian, which the government protested would cost $2.2 billion.
But in the face of mounting public pressure, the government caved in to demands giving Gurkha veterans automatic rights to British residency.
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Visitor's Comments
Howard Chamberlain
Wed Jun 17, 2009 Gurkha Residency in Britain
These men have a closer affinity to Britain than 99 per cent of those from countries like Albania and Romania that Britain has in the past admitted for residency. God Bless the Gurkhas and I am so pleased that the blinkers have been forcibly removed from some of those dullards in Parliament
