Yeah and they’re now rolling that out to everyone, not just EU citizens. This sucks the most for visa nationals because their passport isn’t good enough to get into the country. They need the server to be alive and their documents linked to even make it to the border, let alone to cross it.
Travel to the UK is going to be really chaotic from 1st Jan when all BRPs expire, and 8th Jan when US citizens and other non-EU nationals require ETAs.
I think they now allowed to use expired BRPs for a few months post 1st Jan.
From HO website: "You may be able to use your expired BRP to travel to the UK until 31 March 2025 if both: your BRP expires on or after 31 December 2024. you still have permission to stay in the UK."
Yes, they’ve said that, but gate agents at airports are the people who get to make decisions about boarding and expired documents will definitely freak them out. The issue isn’t really at border control, where there’s direct access to the databases anyway, it’s at the various stages of delegated border enforcement (boarding a plane, right to rent etc) where this will suck.
You might be able to bully them into accepting them because it’s in Timatic but there will be British residents who are blocked at least temporarily because of this.
It’s a little disconcerting because you’re literally one „computer says no“ incident away from not being able to return to your own bed.
Literally zero paperwork was issued to fall back on so you’re entirely dependent on a DB server somewhere
Probably going to get a UK passport too just to manage risk. (Already qualify)