The Guardian reported today (read full article here) that the rights of EU citizens living in the UK are ‘not legally tied to those of the 1.5 million British living abroad’.
According to Ruvi Ziegler, a lecturer in law at Reading University the rights that flow from EU laws, allowing all 500 million European citizens reciprocal rights in each other’s countries, have been incorporated in separate British laws, and therefore the issue is a “domestic” one.
“I think, notwithstanding the political difficulties, legally it is in the unilateral gift of parliament to [ensure rights continue after Brexit],” he told a House of Commons meeting organised by the3million, a lobby group campaigning on behalf of the 3 million European citizens living in the UK.
He was speaking as the former Labour MP Roger Casale said the government’s attitude was like something from the 1920s, using people’s rights as a bargaining chip for some trade-off in political negotiations.
Many EU citizens have been panicked, post-referendum, into applying for permanent residency and filling in complicated 80-page Home Office forms.
Ziegler told the meeting that the right to permanent residency in the UK is enshrined in the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006 and that this would continue to apply post-Brexit.
Up to now, international public law experts have said that no rights, apart from the right to own property and to own a business, would be protected after the UK exits the European Union.
Nicolas Hatton, founder of the3million, told the meeting: “I love this country; I love the history of the country, the culture of the country. It’s a wonderful country. When we moved to the UK, it was in the EU and we didn’t think of the implications that we are faced with now.”
Hatton is a French citizen and has lived in the UK for 21 years. Since he launched the campaign, he has been inundated with stories of concern from EU citizens ranging from Italian doctors to German solicitors and Greek currency traders in the City.
The3million pledge campaign was launched as the Polish and Romanian governments urged Theresa May to clarify what rights their citizens would have post-Brexit.
Casale called on the government to remove the issue of the rights of EU citizens from the negotiating table immediately.
He said it was also important for the other EU member states to remove the 1.5 million British citizens living abroad from the Brexit negotiations.
AIPO.blog 