Anyone putting any plans in place in case we leave?

[ThroughThickAndThin01]

I've just checked the EU referendum current polls and it's looking very close at the moment.

I wondered if anyone is putting plans on hold, or will change any plans they have if we leave?

Personally, I am wracking my brains to think of anything which will directly affect me. Although I wonder if there will economical turmoil and whether to plan for an interest rate rise (our very high mortgage). Which will in turn affect Dhs business.

If we remain, I'd imagine it's just business as usual.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Springing you always get thoroughly outraged by anyone pointing this out, but people who are fair more qualified in European law than you are have said pretty much what I posted above. You have no legal training and no specific knowledge in this area; those with a stake in this should listen to people who do, like Steve Peers:

eulawanalysis.blogspot.fr/2014/07/what-would-happen-to-eu-nationals.html

I asked for a link to a proposed policy document outlining the plans for EU citizens -can I take it that no such thing exists?

Mistigri please could you re-post the link? It doesn't seem to be working.

Springing you always get thoroughly outraged by anyone pointing this out,

Lol I'm not outraged. Not at all. I am reading increasingly hysterical posts that make it sound a though the Stasi are grouped on the front lawn.

but people who are fair more qualified in European law than you are have said pretty much what I posted above.

In other words - 'people whom I have never met have better qualifications than someone else whose qualifications I have never seen, but regardless of this, I am correct. Classic

You have no legal training and no specific knowledge in this area

Wrong.

I asked for a link to a proposed policy document outlining the plans for EU citizens -can I take it that no such thing exists?

Send me a PM and I'll tell you what my rate is for undertaking private research for your Mistigri. Until then you're going to have to Google.

It is working for me, but I will repost it along with the matching article about Britons living in the EU. They are quite old now but the legal position is unchanged.

eulawanalysis.blogspot.fr/2014/07/what-would-happen-to-eu-nationals.html

eulawanalysis.blogspot.fr/2014/05/what-happens-to-british-expatriates-if.html

The only thing that has changed since these were written is that the author - who previously dismissed the possibility of visas being required for holiday and business travel as scaremongering - now thinks that this isn't beyond the bounds of possibility

eulawanalysis.blogspot.fr/2016/04/goodbye-cruel-world-visas-for-holidays.html

Obviously all this is concerning for those of us who rely on free movement for their work or their residency rights or both.

Springing I have googled, rather extensively, since my future may depend upon it.

The best freely-available discussion of the legal position for expats (EU in the UK, and Britons in the EU) is contained in the two links that I have posted above, both written by a professor of European law.

These are informative and well written articles worth reading by anyone with a personal stake in the subject :)

The opinions - not law, not policy, no legal standing whatsoever, just opinions of some academics.

Did we need a visa to visit France before the EU? - NO.

Will we need a visa to visit France once we have left the EU? - NO

And who actually cares if we do? If you regularly visit Rusia you canget a visa that lasts for a length of time. If you visit Turkey or Morrocco you can buy a visa onboard the ferry that takes you there.

I can think of no reason why EU countries would start imposing visas on us - in the full knowledge that we could just retaliate by imposing visas on them in a ridiculous tit-for-tat administrative farce.

But if it suits your purpose to believe it carry on. It just makes the REMAIN case look even less credble than it already is - we must stay in the EU and surrender our freedoms and rights or we'll have to buy a visa when we next fancy a weekend on the Eurostar.

The EU has a wonderful habit of taking our UK tax payers money, rebadging it as 'EU funding' and handing it out in great generous dollops to Policy Units and Research Centres that (guess what) come up with reports that say what a wonderful thing the EU is or how naughty we would be to leave.

It's like a very expensive sock-puppetting that we the UK tax-payers are funding.

Springing I have googled, rather extensively, since my future may depend upon it.

BOOM!!

WE HAVE REACHED PEAK PROJECT FEAR

UBER-HYPERBOLE

I must leave this thread. My future depends on it - I almost died choking on my coffee.

Have you ever visited Russia I wonder? (I have. It's a hassle to get a business visa. Many of my colleagues have to have two passports because of the amount of time their passports spend in embassies waiting for the right stamp).

Of course the Steve Peers articles I linked to above are opinions - but they are at least learned opinions, based on legal texts, and not plucked out of thin air.

I'm happy to read other legal opinions on the position of expats, if you or others can link to them. It's important that those of us who stand to be most affected inform ourselves, so that we can prepare and where possible take action to secure our families' futures.

Thing that confuses me is why people think the bad things will improve if the Tories get even more power.

I'm happy to read other legal opinions on the position of expats, if you or others can link to them.

That's like looking for a handbook on how to bring up baby by rummaging through the afterbirth - It's unnecessary.

Nothing will happen.

It's important that those of us who stand to be most affected inform ourselves, so that we can prepare and where possible take action to secure our families' futures

You claim to already know the steps that would allow you and your family to stay in the country of your choice and you've said your preparations are advanced.

Nothing will happen. But that nice Mr Cameron will never put that in writing because he feeds on your fear - well not your fear because you don't personally qualify for a vote in this referendum you say.

Thing that confuses me is why people think the bad things will improve of the Tories get even more power.

It's not about the Tories / Labour / SNP or any other party 'getting more power'. It's about restoring your power to you

It's not the Government's power to give away to the EU.

It's your power that you lend to any Government for the 5 year term of that Government - after which they return it to you so you can elect another Government.

The Government should not be giving your power and that of your children and the generations that follow them, to the EU.

Because the EU will never give you the opportunity to vote them out of office after 5 years like your own Government will.

Oh spring. Project fear again? Dear dear you're like a stuck record.

Again disagreeing with expert opinion when it doesnt back yours, yet finding nothing to back your opinion with.

Sigh...

Oh spring. Project fear again? Dear dear you're like a stuck record.

You see Lurked, you've just demonstrated why you will always be wrong. I was giving you a lesson on the unwritten constitution and how power in a democracy lie in the hands of the demos - and you dismiss it as 'Project Fear'.

Never mind, it explains why you have no concept of human rights and fail to understand why clever people don't give their power away to undemocratic experiments like the EU.

Again disagreeing with expert opinion when it doesnt back yours, yet finding nothing to back your opinion with.

Expert opinion always agrees with me Lurked. An expert is someone who has extensive, relevant skills, and experience and is doing the job - that's Dan. He's your expert.

Sigh..

I know the feeling, Lurked. Trying to explain why you don't give away your power to unelected bodies is an uphill struggle when talking to unthinking the EUphiles. Let's make it easy for you - Greece gave away its fiscal power - it's now enslaved to the EU.

Moral of that story - DON'T BE LIKE GREECE

I can do you a real project Fear if you like. It would frighten the horses.

You couldn't frighten me, you're not that bright, you quote Daniel Hannan as an expert. Pahahahahaha.

Don't be like Greece? Well not being in the euro, and the fact that most of our debt is owner by British institutions means that we won't.

You couldn't frighten me, you're not that bright,...

I'll just leave that there as an example of the personal abuse you resort to when you can no longer defend our EU. membership.

I probably couldn't scare you Lurked. You need an imagination to be scared.

I've defended EU membership far better than you have challenged it.

Maybe your imagination is a little too vivid eh? I'll stick to basing my opinions on facts and not some fantasy I construct in my head.

What would happen to the NI peace agreement if brexit went ahead?

Total renegotiation?

Good point.

I've defended EU membership far better than you have challenged it.

No, Lurked. You think you have.

What would happen to the NI peace agreement if brexit went ahead?

Total renegotiation?

Not something I am going to turn my mind to at 0120.

No Spring, I know I have.

Mistigri, UK press & Brexit campaigners say the Vienna Convention 1969 would protect “acquired right” guaranteeing that nothing would change for expats. However my understanding is the Convention cannot be relied upon because it is concerned with the rights of one state to another, rather than from a state to an international institution. Not all countries are signatories to the Convention anyway, in particular France.

IF the UK leaves the EU, any rights relating to residence, work, benefits, pensions or healthcare may be maintained by agreement negotiated with the EU or bilateral agreements with individual states. Without such a legal basis any rights would cease to have any effect. Even Dominic Raab of the Leave campaign recently said visas might be required after Brexit.

I’m not a lawyer & you might get a more definitive answer if you post in the legal section on Tuesday after the May Day holiday.

STIDW the Vienna Convention argument seems to have very little legal basis - you will only find references in press articles that all seem to use each other as sources, rather than relying on any serious legal analysis. If you read the opinions of lawyers on the subject it's much more nuanced and it's not clear that it applies at all to the situation of EU expats.

I'd have said 6 months ago that most EU citizens in Britain (and vice versa) had little to worry about, assuming they were working and not relying on reciprocal rights for healthcare, pensions etc. Now I'm not so sure. Raab's views, if they reflect Leave thinking generally, are not reassuring.

Either way, it makes sense for expats as a group to get their ducks in a row. Teenagers may be the group who will be most affected in the short-term, because access to higher education as a home student is not guaranteed after July 2018. So anyone who has the right to seek dual citizenship for their teenager probably should do so.

An expert is someone who has extensive, relevant skills, and experience and is doing the job

Indeed. Like Professor Peers, an academic and practising lawyer, whose articles about the EU expat situation I posted above and to which you have no reply except "project fear" written in capital letters :)