Theresa May is obsessed with ‘ending free movement’, and ‘ending rights based immigration’. In framing proposals for ‘settled status’ for EU Citizens working and living in the UK, she has also allowed this to be influenced with her obsession with the policy she used when Home Secretary – the ‘hostile environment’.
For me, as a UK citizen taking advantage of the free movement available to me for 25 years since the coming into law of the Maastricht Treaty, free movement has meant the freedom to move from S.E. London to rural France, to buy a property and settle down to French life. I have the right to live, work, study and love across all National borders throughout the EU, and those rights are also associated with EU Citizenship.
Alas, for me, EU Citizenship is only given to me as a citizen of a Member State, so when that Member State leaves the EU, my EU Citizenship ceases.
But, thanks to Theresa May’s obsession with ‘ending free movement’, something she has repeated so many times, I will lose the rights I have had to free movement as well. From 11:00 p.m. on 29 March I will only be able to exercise my free movement rights within France. I will be banned from establishing a right of residence, for example, in another EU country, such as Spain, Italy, or Portugal, if I decided I needed more sunny days for my aching joints!
The EU has decided to enforce EU law on me because they will designate me as a ‘Third Country National’, a TCN, from 29 March. And, as a TCN I will no longer have the same rights I have had for the past 25 years. So, despite the promises and guarantees made many times by Theresa May that my life would be ‘the same on the day after as it was on the day before’, she has made sure that will not be the case!
On 5th April 2017, the EU Chief Negotiator, Michel Barnier told the European Parliament: “For European citizens in the United Kingdom and vice versa: the continuity and reciprocity of the rights they currently enjoy must be effectively guaranteed, without discrimination”.
It took the UK 82 days to respond. However, the UK’s answer was to wave two digits at Michel Barnier, and launch detailed proposals in their ‘position paper’ for imposing something to be called ‘Settled Status’ on every EU Citizen living in the UK.
Just 17 days after the publication of the ‘position paper’, Michel Barnier, giving evidence to a Select Committee of the House of Lords, responded in this way: “We have a problem with the British paper on some of the reciprocal rights and the enforcement of those rights. If I read it properly, the proposal would mean that Union rights would be applied to British citizens resident in the Union and that British law would be applied to EU citizens in the UK, but we know that British law will be less favourable, so we have a problem with reciprocity. We have a problem with lack of certainty in relation to the implementation of British law and the jurisdictional aspect to the British courts without any guarantees on future laws. The procedure will be very heavy and cumbersome. Citizens with their children will all have to make individual requests to the UK on the basis of the British paper, which contains many expressions that are not legally clear: “We wish”, “We are prepared to”, “We hope”. We have a basis for working together; we have some substance there, and I would like to have that kind of substance on the other subjects as well.”
That revealed what we had suspected – settled status is not the same as the rights EU Citizens in the UK have now, and the EU is going to reciprocate the strident demands for reciprocity which Theresa May repeated over and over.
Although I am speaking for myself, I am much more concerned for the 80% of Brits working and living across the EU who are of working age or younger. Their lives and their livelihoods are about to be turned upside down by the obsessive behaviour of Theresa May!
It is so easy to blame the EU for their hard line. For me it would not have happened had it not been for Theresa May’s obsession with ‘ending free movement’!
Why can the 3.6 million EU Citizens in the UK not simply have their existing rights confirmed? The rights they have now were given to them by the EU. They will have to apply for, and pay for something less than the rights they have had for 25 years!
Whatever your position on Brexit, there is no way what is happening matches up to the ‘promises’ Theresa May made in her Lancaster House speech, or the ‘guarantees’ she offered in her Florence speech. When she claims that she gave ‘priority’ to citizens’ rights she is not telling the truth!
Citizens’ Rights are Indivisible 