Gurkha Justice Campaign perhaps most famously Joanna Lumley. The campaign eventually succeeded. Until 2004 Gurkhas were not allowed to settle in the United Kingdom. However, the Labour government under Tony Blair changed the rules so that Gurkhas who retired after 1997 would be allowed to settle in the UK, 1997 being the date when the Gurkha Brigade headquarters moved from Hong Kong to Britain. Soldiers who retired before this date, however, were only allowed the same settlement rights in exceptional circumstance. The Gurkha Justice Campaign wanted the same settlement rights for all Gurkha soldiers. In 2008, the high court ruled that the policy
7th Duke of Edinburgh's Own Gurkha Rifles the 1st Battalion and the Left Wing becoming the 2nd Battalion 7th Gurkha Rifles. The regiment had the distinction of being one of only two out of the ten Gurkha regiments to recruit its soldiers from the towns and villages which lie along the rugged foothills of the Himalayas east of Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. Gurkha officers and soldiers have come predominantly from the Rai and Limbu clans but the roll records many names from the less numerous Sunwar, Tamang and Eastern Gurung clans, men from the Sherpa families of mountaineering fame and a sprinkling from Western Nepal and