To think freedom of movement is not understood by most!

[Onetwothree4]

I'm an EU citizen, lived most of my life in the UK and I can't stand this political nonsense of lies and misinterpretation anymore! Do you guys know that the freedom of movement exercised by most EU countries is as follows:

1. You can move to another EU country without a visa for 3 months to stay, study or look for work
2. After 3 months you will have to apply for a permission to settle based on your employment, family ties or studies
3. You will also have to prove you are financially able to look after yourself and not become a burden on the country's social welfare system.
4. You have to apply to be included in the social security system to be entitled to healthcare, education, benefits etc..

The UK GOVERNMENT decided to operate this free for all approach of people being able to just jump on the plane and go straight to the doctors. Most EU countries (maybe even all others!) did not! You can not do this in other EU countries.

The culprit is the UK government, not the EU! Why did they do that? I don't know. Probably needed the workforce? This is all smoke and mirrors and a big game played by the privileged boys in politics who want the top job.

Just to spell it out: If you wanted to move to my country, which is a full EU country with euro as currency, you would have to LEAVE after 3 months if you could not prove a valid reason to be there. This is how EU works. It's the UK law makers who took a very liberal approach to these rules and created this mess called Brexit.

Isn't it the case that you cannot discriminate between a UK and another EU citizen? So you cannot have one set of rules for one and one for another? Isn't that why the UK did it that way? (This is a question - I don't know )

The whole thing is ridiculous. Mainly I think people don't understand that if you pull up the drawbridge, then yes, you block people from 'getting in' but you also block yourself from getting out. Which is fine if you like your pipe and slippers and a bit of telly for the rest of your days, but not so great for the rest of us.

YANBU OP
I didn’t know that. Although I am a remainer anyway...
My only experience with EU nationals moving to UK are Irish which I know comes under the common travel area and thankfully won’t be affected by Brexit (as far as I understand)

YANBU

'Immigrants taking benefits' was one of the main talking points of the referendum, this information was available but not really mentioned by either side.

I wish there had been some sort of information sheet that both sides had had to sign up to, summarising both arguments, with facts that were independently verified, and not all that '350m a week more to the NHS' and 'we are full up' bollocks

@CleopatraTomato no there isn't such discrimination rule! Most EU countries (probably all others) wouldn't let just anyone settle and took advantage of the system without contributing first. Why the UK chose to do it completely differently from all other EU countries I don't know. And they'd probably deny the whole thing now anyways (politicians and media) just because they gave a narrative now they can't let go. I don't care if Brexit happens or not, but I do care about the public being lied to!

Sorry, lots of typos.. Heated phone typing

Why do you feel the need to tell us this? Don’t you think we know Brexit is a mess and the result of many things, ignorance just one of them.

It's sad that, because some people want to stop inward immigration, then freedom of movement is stopped. But it's not stopped for anyone else in the EU, just British citizens.

Everyone else can continue to move easily between 27 other countries to live and work and study, and we will all have that taken away from us, regardless of whether we voted to leave or remain. It's a lot to have taken away.

Yes I did know that, thank you.

Don’t lump all of us into the same stupid morass of Leave.

Well said. 👏🏼

@MrsGrindah because like many if you I follow the politics daily and have never ever heard a true description of what freedom of movement means. Not the free-for-all UK version, but the more reasonable one most other EU countries practise. If I had my own TV or radio show I would not shut up about it, but I don't so I made it my business to start a thread on mumsnet instead.

I don’t like your hectoring tone so I’m exercising my right to freedom of movement and hiding this thread.

Yes but if you talk to a leaver they'll look confused and mutter something about "red tape"! If you then point out that leaving EU institutions requires equivalent UK institutions to be established thus resulting in manufacturing and exporters having to comply with two sets of regulation they will then tell you they "felt" the EU was "too big" or "bad". In short you can't argue with....

Interesting. I voted remain and knew broadly about freedom of movement but not the nuts and bolts so Thankyou.

Or with MrsGrindah...

Although I voted Brexit as a protest vote, not imagining it would win, (oops), I would agree that at heart most of the problems that led to it can be placed slap back on UK governments. Wrt FOM New Labour, who green lighted FOM from the get go, when most EU countries consulted their people first and implemented a 7 year transitional period as a result, must consider how much they are to blame for where we are now.

You seriously voted leave to protest?

And you think 'oops' is funny????

I literally have no words.

@MrsGrindah that indeed is your right! But I think the people you should be angry with are the ones editing the newspapers and making policies and misleading you. It's not your fault! Who has time to read through EU laws? I don't. I only know this because I'm from another country. But if you'd rather dislike my tone that's fine as well.

All correct. And we could have had ID cards, we could have had a proper system of registration like other countries, but oh no - we couldn't possibly do that because we're British... We could have imposed transitional restrictions on Eastern European countries joining the EU like almost all other EU countries chose to, but no, OUR gouvernement decided not to. We also actually discriminate against our own nationals by imposing higher burdens and visa requirements on them to bring their family members from abroad, where other EU nationals enjoy the same rights to do that in their own countries as they do abroad in other EU nations. We create a lot of problems and love to blame others.

British governments at fault completely and just used EU to scapegoat.

YANBU

I hope there is some sense of sanity to all of this soon.

@Cheeserton it's such a shame isn't it? I care deeply about what happens in this country and I feel so sad about what's going on. A whole nation being pulled into this fight for political power by manipulating voters for their own gain. Where is the true democracy based on facts?! It's beyond belief and it keeps on getting worse. There was no need for the brexit vote. They could have just tweaked the freedom of movement rules and everyone would have been happy.

@CandyLeBonBon. My oops, wasn't meant facetiously. To me and seemingly many other people the referendum was a once in a blue moon chance for our dissatisfaction with the direction of travel to have resonance. Again though, that is something that goes slap bang back on the UK and its political system. My default setting though is to seek an explanation for the dissatisfaction not to dismiss it out of hand.

its just not about the stupid 3 month rule, lets be honest is hard to enforce, and wouldn't the lefties just love a few pictures of a family being deported forcefully as they have outstayed their time and showed no intent to leave.
Its more about huge numbers of low and unskilled workers taking jobs from the British low and unskilled workers, keeping wages low taking over communities, putting pressure on services etc, when the locals complain, the then PM calls them Bigots for raising their concerns, FOM has impacted the UK more than any other EU country, we are already the mostly densely populated country in the EU, how many more can this country take, What is the maximum population this country can take, 70,80,90, million ?

@Hester54 the 3 month rule is not stupid! It's perfectly fine and enforceable in other countries. People don't get access to services like healthcare or education without a proof of income, and that alone is enough to control the number of people coming in. I agree with you in that the UK population is too big. But why oh why did they create this open doors policy?

And.. can you imagine moving to another country and just staying on with no job, no bank account, no healthcare or education for your children? You would probably go back home anyways don't you think? No awful deportation pics needed!