Despite having completed a three-year wait to qualify for Scotland on residency earlier this year Howarth could still have been stopped from re-entering the UK.
Howarth had followed Foreign Office guidelines when updating his four-year ancestry visa by applying for indefinite leave to reside in the UK, which should have been a formality. Told that if he sent for the new visa more than a month before the due date of November 19, his application would merely be returned, he waited until the middle of last month before putting in the forms.
However, a backlog meant that his new papers had still not arrived last week, more than six weeks after he had applied, so he asked the SRU for help. The SRU made little headway until they advised Howarth to contact local MP Galloway, who readily got his office to intervene.
"They spoke to some people and I was told that everything has now been approved," Howarth told The Herald, who "I am very grateful for the help that Mr Galloway gave me."