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.

sireal - as British citizen you do, currently, have, and have had for many years, the right to live in the other countries of the EU. Just as EU citizens have the right to live in the UK. Other EU citizens haven't moved to the UK in large numbers because of the English language or the NHS but because of the UK's job market. Tragically, the reason that there are so many jobs for EU citizens in the UK is because British citizens are under skilled and under educated. When the supply of EU citizens dries up, so will the economy.

Bobo, why are these very educated and very skilled EU citizens unable to create jobs in their countries. Just asking.

sireal what what would be your solution? Should people from the EU who live in Britain up sticks and go to a country which is not their home? Likewise British people living in the EU? If they were allowed to stay, how would it work? Would they have to prove their 'value'? I can foresee an adminstrative nightmare so I am genuinely interested to hear what Leavers thoughts are on how it would work. When my mum first moved to England in the 1960s she had to report regularly to a police station, being a foreigner.

People don't generally "create" jobs when they immigrate - they are mostly employed. EU citizens have moved to the UK because the jobs market had many openings that weren't necessarily available in their own countries. Academics, for example, cannot find work in Southern European universities because of structural and funding issues.

When my mum first moved to England in the 1960s she had to report regularly to a police station, being a foreigner.

Mine too (though I'm not sure how often). I bet the police would love having to do that now.

Tragically, the reason that there are so many jobs for EU citizens in the UK is because British citizens are under skilled and under educated. When the supply of EU citizens dries up, so will the economy.

And since many of the EU citizens are working in education, the underskilled/undereducated problem will get even worse.

My experience is that most British people do care very much about this issue. But if you feel they don't then that is hard for you. I have a SiL who is affected by this as well as many friends. So - I care -

but I also care about:
"Tragically, the reason that there are so many jobs for EU citizens in the UK is because British citizens are under skilled and under educated. When the supply of EU citizens dries up, so will the economy. this attitude.

Why would a company train an eighteen year old local fresh out of school when they can buy in a twenty five year old from the EU who has had a good education, five years workplace experience and is willing to do a job below his skill level to gain language skills and a place in the UK? They wouldn't. They don't.

Many people cared about this terribly. Still do. It is imperative to get in place proper training courses - the sort of thing that has been abandoned by government and companies - to ensure that the economy is supported. I will be fighting for that.

It is generally fair to say that people care less about things that do not affect them. Not everyone - but most of us.

"When I look at how the country has been "managed" in the past few decades and the absolutely inhumane policies that people put up with, nothing really surprises me any more. People just don't understand the incredible deep-seated incompetence of successive governments."

It's more malicious and far more deliberate than just incompetence.

mimishimmi - deliberate malicious intent? I don't think so.

@sireal the EU nationals who come to this country don't come for the benefits. They come to work. Very few of them claim benefits. They have to contribute for one year before they are entitled to benefits. Benefits in the U.K. might be better than in some other countries, but they are much lower than in other countries like France or Germany. If that's benefits that EU migrants wanted, they'd go to these countries, not the UK

And @sireal, yes as the UK is a member of the EU, you are perfectly entitled to go and live in another EU country. Not for much longer sadly.

I forgot to say, re. benefits, every EU member state can send home migrants who don't try to get a job after 3 months, and other countries certainly do apply that rule. The UK has chosen not to.

@sireal do you realise that leaving the UK will not change anything to the numbers of immigrants in this country? In the past few weeks we've had various ministers say that immigrants would still be needed and welcome in sectors as varied as agriculture, building and banking, not to mention the NHS

@BoboChic yes there is deliberate intent. Take the NHS for instance: starve it of funds, impose contracts that get the staff up in arms, remove bursaries so that would-be students can't afford to become nurses, watch the whole thing fall apart as a result, then say "the NHS is failing, we must privatise it" then sell it to your rich friends. They are asset-stripping the country and want to turn it into a tax haven, that much seems clear to me.

As for underfunding the education system, well, uneducated people are much easier to control and influence than those who have been taught to think critically...

For those thinking the UK needs to leave the EU in order to control immigration: https://infacts.org/one-time-expats-tale-control-free-movement/

It's an interesting read.

This is seriously worrying:
www.freemovement.org.uk/briefing-legal-status-eu-citizens-uk/

I've started a thread on the petitions board asking for support for the petition to reform the PR process.

If you care about your non-British EU friends, neighbours, family, colleagues, please sign the petition and comment on the thread to bump it.

Thank you!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/petitions_noticeboard/2865308-Reform-the-system-of-obtaining-Permanent-Residence-Certification-Card-PR-for-non-British-EU-nationals-resident-in-the-UK?watched=1&msgid=67258520#67258520

We might still stay in the EEA - there is a court case about this - they've been told it's too early to bring an action but the group bringing it are not going to go away. If we stay in the EEA (and there are so many reasons why we should, even though we'll end up with all the rules but none of the say in making them) the problem of what happens to EU citizens here and British citizens in the rest of the EU goes away. Don't give up hope of this process having a better-than-awful ending.

Whether we stayed in the EEA or not was not the focus of the campaign and all the briefings I went to had staying in the EEA as an option as well as just relying on WTO rules or having a model like Switzerland or Turkey. Funnily enough, crashing out of the EU with no agreement at all wasn't one of the options.

VallarMorghulis - the link you provided to the post on In Facts supports my earlier point: successive UK governments are (wildly) incompetent and did not use the tools at their disposal to control EU immigration.

@BoboChic totally, it's a problem of their own making...