PA Media: Video
A long-distance British-Danish couple have condemned the impacts of Brexit after asking the public to help them raise more than £88,000 for a visa so they can start their lives together. Nathaniel Bacchus, 24, from Ipplepen in Devon, and Karin Kohlmetz, 26, from Esbjerg in Denmark, met online on a Discord server in May 2022 with a group of mutual internet friends, but soon found themselves gravitating towards each other. After speaking online for six months, they started to take their relationship seriously and Nathaniel flew to Denmark to meet Karin for the first time in November 2022, which they said was “surreal”. They have since visited each other a handful of times in the UK and Denmark respectively, but now dream of getting married and starting a family – with Karin applying for a spouse or partner visa and moving to the UK. However the salary threshold for spouse or partner visas was raised to £29,000 earlier this year, and Nathaniel does not meet those requirements after he left his job where he worked in a Co-op supermarket for seven years as he felt he could not progress further.