Spectator columnist mocked for admitting: “Once we Brexiteers get our Irish passports, we can go anywhere”

In one of those headlines that makes you stop and do a double take, the Spectator recently published an article entitled: “Once we Brexiteers get our Irish passports, we can go anywhere.”

The piece, written by columnist Melissa Kite, meanders through anecdotes about a dead rat in her Irish home before eventually arriving at its central point: her and her partner’s plan to sell up in Ireland and relocate to southern France, complete with a swimming pool and acres of pasture for their horses.

There is, however, one obstacle.

“We can’t really sell and implement stage two of our dastardly plan until we get our Irish passports,” Kite writes, explaining that she expects to qualify for Irish citizenship within the next few years.

She continues:

“Once we, a couple of Brexiteers, get these Irish passports, we can then go and live anywhere in Europe.”

Kite openly acknowledges the contradiction, noting that some readers will regard the move as hypocritical. One particularly unimpressed correspondent apparently sent her a card bearing a shamrock and the message: “Clear off then!”

Yet the criticism is not difficult to understand.

After declining to revisit the reasons she supported Brexit, claiming they would be too “boring and unfunny” to explain, Kite nevertheless celebrates the prospect of regaining the very freedom of movement that Brexit removed for millions of British citizens.

Looking forward to obtaining an Irish passport through long-standing Anglo-Irish arrangements, she writes enthusiastically about being able to “wander the entire continent,” settle in “the best bits of Europe” and enjoy life in places such as the Dordogne.

The article reaches peak irony when Kite compares her plan to reclaim EU mobility rights with people seeking alternative routes into Britain, writing:

“We are only doing what the whole world does in relation to our country of birth, which is to say access it in a sneaky way.”

Whether intended as satire, self-awareness or neither, the column quickly sparked a wave of ridicule online.

As one commenter observed:

“The year is 2026. The Brexit referendum is nearly ten years in the past, and a Brexiteer is finally coming to terms with the benefits of having an EU passport.”

Another asked:

“So she messed it up for others and now goes for an EU passport?”

Others were even less charitable.

“Just the sort of person you expect to find writing in the Spectator.”

“I’m all right, Jack, pull up the ladder.”

The reaction reflects a broader trend. Since Brexit, hundreds of thousands of UK residents have sought Irish passports in order to retain access to EU citizenship rights.

In 2024 alone, almost a quarter of a million people living in the UK applied for an Irish passport, the highest figure since the UK formally left the European Union. More than half of those applications came from Northern Ireland. Before the Brexit referendum, demand was notably lower. In 2015, just 873 applications were recorded from Great Britain.

For critics, Kite’s article perfectly encapsulates what they see as the defining contradiction of Brexit: supporting the removal of freedom of movement for everyone else, while enthusiastically pursuing personal routes back into the EU when the consequences become inconvenient.