to not want to be treated like a bargaining chip?

[VallarMorghulis]

As a EU national who's lived here over 20 years, I am disgusted at the way the UK government is treating me and other like me like bargaining chips.

"Why didn't you apply for British citizenship?", you may ask. Well I don't have a spare £1500 behind the sofa that I could use to do so. Still I am planning to, I will beg and borrow if I need to, and hopefully, other than the bureaucratic hoops I'll have to jump through and the money I'll have to part with, it should be quite easy for me to do so.

However, for many other EU nationals, it's going to be impossible. Since 2015 a requirement to apply for citizenship is for EU nationals to first apply and obtain a permanent residence card. Many do not qualify, regardless of how long they have lived in this country, whether they have a British spouse or British children. For instance, stay at home parents, carers, students. Why? Because no-one told them that they needed a comprehensive health insurance to qualify. Universities even advise students that they don't need health insurance and that they should just register with a GP. The low earning self-employed are another category who do not qualify.

The government has said that they guarantee the right to stay of EU nationals who are lawfully residents in the UK. What does "lawfully" mean? Does that mean that people who do not qualify for permanent residency are not here lawfully? That they might be deported, or even face prison sentences? Some immigration lawyers think so (www.freemovement.org.uk/new-policies-and-forms-for-eu-nationals-show-hardening-home-office-position/). Hopefully
it will not come to this, but the uncertainty is causing much distress.

I am so fed up of being told "you'll be all right". What about my friends who might not be?

Take Patrizia, for instance, who's story is shown in the video below. She's Italian, met and fell in love with her husband, they have 2 children and decided she would be a SAHM. She's been here most of her adult life. And yet, her future is uncertain.

I am not a bargaining chip, no one should be treated this way.

Has the remaining members of the EU stated british nationals can remain as before? Didnt think so this beacon of hope to so many whose officials speak of retribution and punishment ok the uk, as if it is a prison we are escaping from.
I hope all eu nationals pre referendum can stay but dont want my government to give away this before british nationals are also as secure.

Yabba
I won't copy your typos but if we had stated we were remaining in the EEA this would come automatically. There is absolutely nothing to prevent us from doing so except the stupidity and stubbornness of this government.

We are not remaining in the EEA so will not come automatically so the whole issue will be up for negotiation. Again im sure if the EU was interested the matter of residence could be put to bed on both sides, instead they're preparing for the budgetary black hole and setting their bill for the seperation. Obviously will not resort to an initial attempt of an insult
Ready for spell check and marking Dr

OP if it helps I will be marching on the 25th of March with my husband and at least 5 of our friends. It will be my 4th rally or march since june. I can't manage to get to all the London events but will be trying for the big ones.

Still deciding what to put on my banner. Was considering 'the forgotten 48% #stayinEEA' but may see what slogans there are for the 3 million, one of the people we will be going with is an EU27 citizen. I envy her nationality, this doesn't feel like my country anymore and I have been an EU citizen for as long as I can remember. I hope she isn't too worried yet, I hope she will be able to stay.

I am a Lib Dem member though not active and they are campaigning as hard as they can, they don't have the numbers in the commons although it's a lot better in the Lords www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/20/article-50-bill-lords-highly-likely-pass-amendment-eu-citizens

drspouse - I didn't say that. An active contribution does not necessarily mean only monetary. Just setting that straight.

I do not understand your point, drspouse. I know full well what we are talking about.

I am in the same boat. French citizen, I have been living and paying tax in the UK for 13 years, I have a British husband and DD. Thankfully I work, so should qualify for the right to remain (if I can navigate the lengthy, needlessly complicated application process), but the lack of clarity about our situation is causing our family a lot of stress.

DH has written to our MP several times ; he was strongly in the Remain camp, is fighting for people like us, and has replied to us, but there is only so much one person can do.

Like OP, we sign and share every petition that might help, and we are saving up the ££££ needed for a citizenship, but I am sick and tired of hearing "oh you'll be ok" and people being dismissive of how stressful it is.

Lots of people seem slightly bemused that I am even worried, and when I probe them to try and understand why, it turns out that some of them assume that anyone who looks Caucasian and is legally employed will automatically be allowed to stay

I feel like I am banging my head against the walls.

We are now considering emigrating because frankly, we are quite disgusted by the state of the country, the xenophobia, islamophobia, and general nastiness of the past few months.

The real kicker was when we found out that MIL (who isn't even British but allowed to vote as part of the Commonwealth) voted Leave "because of the NHS". She is now kicking herself because there is a real possibility that we will relocate in a different country in the next few years, taking with us her only and beloved grandchild.

Bobo So why did you bring up people moving to the UK?

Yabba but we could easily have stayed in the EEA which would have fulfilled the "leave the EU" criteria, kept our trade tariffs down and given reassurance to all the residents of both sets of countries. It's just the government saying we must leave the EEA. Nobody voted for that.
Or do you think that Leave voters are too dense to understand the difference and thought they were voting to leave the EEA, not the EU?

The Shift key can be found either side of your keyboard, on my keyboard the apostrophe is just above the right hand one. The comma key is nearby. And verbs need to agree with nouns.

some of them assume that anyone who looks Caucasian
That's right, the White test...

I haven't brought up people moving to the U.K.

You did say immigration to the UK by citizens of the EU will be an awful lot less attractive and EU citizens are likely to want to move within the EU, not to the UK, in search of work.

Another bargaining chip here. Irish Dh and I (from another EU country but raised internationally) have been here since1996. Two (British) kids born here. In the last 20 years I've been a Cambridge PhD student, employee of a large multinational company, SAHM and founder/MD of my own online business (for the last 10 years - with another 3 employees)
We looked at applying for permanent residency for me but decided not to because

1. the 85 page document is humiliating and impossible to document this far down the line (with no previous warning). After my Dad died suddenly and I had to fly to Sweden at a moment's notice, I'm simply not prepared to give up my passport even for a week, never mind 6 months!

2. the "permanent residence" document won't be worth the paper it's written on after Brexit as it depends on EU laws...

That was way back in the thread and perfectly relevant to the conversation at that point.

drspouse
Again i will not lower to your standards and retorts but currently using a mobile so your point about keyboard is not very relevant.
I voted leave and was fully aware this coild well mean leaving the EEA as staying in it ties us with the same handcuffs as before and the "libertarians" in the EU would ask for the exact same budget contribution.
You talk of being an EU citizen which requires it to be a sovereign state and although it no doubt wishes to be so I'm glad i was part of the silent majority who stopped it in its tracks.

You did ask about the typos.

I'm glad you were aware that we might be leaving the EEA. Do you think everyone else who voted Leave thought this? Do you think they all worked out it would mean their EU citizen relatives/friends/doctors/carers would have to leave?

Since it wasn't spelled out, I very much doubt it.

Not sure drspouse i don't have time to canvass the majority.
But fairly sure Osborne or whoever the remain camp continually asked to preach on our impending doom should we dare vote leave stated we would leave the EEA. Even treasury forecasts said EEA trading was very unlikely if we were to vote to leave.
The information was there just you had to take the blinkers off.
Its like asking did everyone who voted remain do so out of fear of the warnings and threats over what would happen, immediate recession, emergency budget, tax rises, shall we ask everyone who voted for a 2nd opinion that is the EU way. If at first the people don't give you the answer you want ask until they do.

Http:www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/22/supreme-court-ruling-due-challenge-foreign-spouse-income-limit2/

This is not good news. The Supreme Court has upheld the government's hardline stance on dual national couples where the non-British partner is from outside the EEA. The same rules are likely to apply to spouses from the EEA post-Brexit and may well get even tougher.

I know this is a public forum and it's healthy to be able to debate issues like this, but I would really appreciate it if Leavers didn't come on threads such as these to gloat they won. People are very worried, anxious and in a fairly precarious position, there's so many other threads about Brexit that it just comes across as callous.

Obviously just my opinion.

Bobo those rules are just evil. I would not exist if they had been in force when my parents had met, as my DF was in a job that requires a lot of qualifications but pays very little in the early years, and they would just not have been able to afford to get married - I know they did discuss living in my DM's (non EU) country of origin but there wasn't anything for him there at the time.

I heard someone in this position being interviewed on R4 the other day and some evil woman from UKIP was saying "oh but the partner in the UK moved here with a job to go to". And NOBODY picked her up on it and said "well he may have a Pakistani wife and perhaps he is Asian himself - though as you can't see him you can't really say - BUT HE IS BRITISH".

The rules are, as you say, evil and make a mockery of divorce laws where resident parents, against their better judgement, have to facilitate access to non-paying and feckless non-resident parents "for the good of the children". Incredible double standards when it comes to family law.

I'm a British citizen, I don't think I have a "right" to live anywhere else, unless it is agreed (formally or informally).

The problem with UK is that because (1) English is the international language and (2) our benefits and health system is better than poorer EU countries, we are just attracting huge numbers of people that cannot simply be contained in a tiny country like the UK! On top of that Britain has commonwealth connections and responsibilities re. immigration from those countries e.g. India. Plus we have set quotas to accept other people from different countries set out by the EU. Not to forget the many illegal immigrants who will go through lots of legal countries until they get here.

This is the political reality. Its nothing personal against the people we have living and working in UK who are from other countries. The British government should never have made promises without asking the British people. They never did of course, and that is the original problem.

sireal you haven't read the rest of the thread or the heartfelt pleas from people that live here, have you?

None of what you have posted has anything to do with this thread. Much of it isn't true.

And I would add that whilst remainers often seem very angry indeed about their personal position, which was never a guarantee they were given anyway, they seem completely blind to the concerns of people who are British citizens who are genuinely worried about the huge levels of immigration into this country and the impact it has been having for a long time. Such concerns were suppressed by the political liberal elite for years and anyone who said anything off-message was immediately denounced in the most vile way. I stopped coming to MN for these reasons for years, as probably did many "Leave" voters. But we carried on voting, because its a democracy!

I read the first page. And I'm responding to OP!

But none of what you have said is relevant to the OP. Long term EU residents are not illegal immigrants, they are not trying to come here, they live here.

Britain is not tiny or full, our health system is propped up by immigrants (both through taxes - they pay more than British citizens per head, and by working in it).

Can you show me where there are quotas to accept people from other EU countries? I can only find information on refugee quotas (where we accept shamefully low numbers for our size and wealth).

But again that is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT to the OP. The OP already lives here.