Those of us who live and lurk on the rainy side of the Atlantic will be more than familiar with the rantings of right wing media that the White cliffs of Dover are under siege day and night by foreign types who want free Satellite television, a free car, cut price shopping at the tax payers expense and a three bedroom semi in Dudley provided that they pass the simple forms and checks to claim political asylum.

Well lets see if Nintendo's portly short arsed mascot could gain a British passport in a little segment that I like to call . . .



Here is the situation Mario jumps into a green pipe in the Mushroom Kingdom and pops out into the French end of the Euro tunnel, spotting some heavily armed Gendarmerie he takes his chances at the other end of the tunnel in Britain.

First off our boy Mario might be covered by one of the four freedoms of the European Union that, clearly as an Italian, he is entitled to the right of free movement (covered here by Directive 2004/38/EC
of the EC treaty) as long as he can prove that he is a student, self employed, an agricultural worker or a skilled worker. As we all know Mario is a professional plumber and possibly a doctor (though I've never seen his PHD) provided that those professions are on the Skills Shortage List he is top trumps for citizenship, however seeing as Mario didn't plan for this little excursion back to reality he has arrived with no proof of . . well anything. A stereotyped Italian accent and a pair of dungerees are hardly about to gain you entrance into the UK, couple that with the fact that he's been in the Mushroom Kingdom for the last 15 years and it is doubtful the Italian government even considers Mario Mario a citizen any more. Also explaining to immigration control that you've spent the last decade and a half or so "saving princesses from giant lizard kings and eating mushrooms that make me bigger" will at best get you a few funny looks, at worst some hospital time in straight jacket and a frontal lobotomy.

So what are Mario's other options? Well he could apply for citizenship as a stateless person however all of the options require him to have been of British decent and also Mario has to pay a fee (non refundable if the application does not succeed) and the only change he has on him is a few power coins, 6 golden coins, a few red and blue coins and one purple coin (like hell he's giving that one away considering how hard it was to get) all of which are not acceptable currency. He could attempt to claim political asylum at which point he will be placed into an asylum detention centre whilst his case is processed at one of the two asylum screening units in Croydon or Liverpool. Here he will be given his chance to plead his case to an interviewer, possibly citing living in constant terror of the Koopa regime, although with little evidence to support himself it looks unlikely that this will work.

Ultimately the authorities will ship Mario back over to the French side to be processed there where he stands a better chance of citizenship, whilst over there he might make a run for it and try to enter Britain illegally which some sources claim he stands a good chance of doing albeit these sources feature very little if no citation at all for their figures.

In conclusion the answer to could Super Mario; defender of the Mushroom Kingdom, scourge of the Koopa Royal family, race driver, tennis player, golfer, basketball all star, footballer, time traveller, skilled combatant, sporting referee, olympian and saviour of Mario World many times over, become a British citizen? No!



I'd speculate that rather like the last time Mario was missing Luigi will come looking for him to bring him back like the gormless tool that he is instead of leaving Mario to rot here and taking Princess Peach back his mansion for a "shoulder to cry on"�. The big tart.