Westministers: The Lords Strike Back

[RedToothBrush]

This needs no fanfare or lengthy post. Just this:

The Lords are demanding amendments unilateral protection for EU citizens.

Labour was split 358 for an amendment to 256 against.

This is after Amber Rudd had tried to reassure the Lords by writing a letter assuring peers that EU citizens would be treated with the utmost respect.

Utmost respect = an amendment to guarantee unilateral support.

Today is a good day. It should have been done in the first place.

I think it will happen sadly.

Reportedly the EU will find it easier to make a trade deal with India now that the Uk is going
I suspect that he EU will find it easier to trade with everyone now UK has gone.

Merkel made a mistake, but from the best of reasons.
I admire her, even though it didn't turn out well
She thought she could match Germany's need for young people with the refugees' need for a safe home.

There is still a lot of genuine good will towards refugees; lots of posters about volunteers and from businesses saying welcome.
So don't think it's all disaster like the Uk media claim - some refugees are successfully making new lives.

mistigri i believe it is already happening.

And there is a deliberate push for it to happen.

Well in that case if you do not "feel british" after 20 years of working here... in my view I am glad you couldn't vote.

You had the option to do so and you did not take it.

YERerse this is a friendly thread, we don't do personal attacks, thanks.

There are plenty of people who would love to be British. .. how entitled is it to work here for 20 years, deliberately not take citizenship and then to complain that you can't vote on British matters when you "don't feel british" and '"don't want to be british"

Living in a country, even permanently, doesn't necessarily mean you wish to be a citizen

I haven't applied for German citizenship.
Not that I care about being British, but because although I've really enjoyed living & working in Germany, I don't feel German

Somehow, as a mixed race English-Arab agnostic woman, I feel a citizen of Europe so I really hope the proposal for European citizenship can be realised.

I would feel totally unBritish if the UK decides to withdraw from the ECHR.
Not the sort of country I want to be associated with
What would you not want to have human rights enshrined in law ?
So human rights can be optional if the govt is feeling mean sometime ?

YER You seem to feel insulted that longterm UK residents don't wish to be British. Is that right ?

I was born in the Uk and lived most of my life there, but I never felt very British - I think because of sustained racism I suffered as a child and young adult, somehow Britain never "took" with me.
Even though both parents were very patriotic and I was an RAF brat.
That's what racism does: creates a pool of resentful ethnic minorities who feel no loyalty, maybe even feel hatred.

Err YER who is complaining of not being able to vote??
I actually said I was happy NOT to vote because I didn't want the citizenship because I VALUE the idea of being a citizen more than to see it just as a piece of paper.

So I don't feel British, I don't get the citizenship therefore I don't vote.
And I live with it even though it means I can not have a say in how the country is run and how it will affect my life.
No issue with that really.

But that is in total disconnect with whether eu citizens apshould be allowed to stay in the U.K. After Brexit.

Yer -The self-entitlement has been all over these threads since day one.
Woman - are you on a wind up?

Are we in triple shift territory yet?

Yer would you expect all the 800.000 Brits on Spain to feel Spanish or to have acquired Spanish nationality? Many of them don't even speak the language or make the effort to, and when they break a leg they need an interpreter at hospital. They buy Heinz baked beans in British supermarkets tailor-made for them and drink pints under a Union Jack. I don't hear anyone telling them they should have "put a ring on it" when they voice legitimate concerns about their current uncertain situation, here or in Spain.

And as said, like BigChoc and a lot of people who have actually lived abroad, I don't feel I belong to the country I am living in for 20 years anymore than I am feeling i belong to the country that saw me being born there.

YY about being European first and foremost.

Have a look at the talk below. I think it explains well how it feels to be from lost fo different places
www.ted.com/talks/taiye_selasi_don_t_ask_where_i_m_from_ask_where_i_m_a_local?language=en

Why peregrina when you have worked here for so long and did not plan to go anywhere had you not applied for citizenship. I am sure you would have got it years ago and it would have meant you could vote?

Why are you asking me this? Being British, I have voted in every election since 1970, including the European elections when we started electing MEPs. Why do other EU citizens not register? Some would lose the citizenship of their other country - some would not be eligible.

and EU resident British citizens who were entitled to vote didn't all get to?
Some postal votes didn't arrive in time. Cameron was going to enfranchise those away from the UK for more than 15 years but didn't get round to it.

It seems unreasonable that citizens of Malta and Cyprus could vote.
Malta and Cyprus happen to be in the Commonwealth. No more unreasonable than allowing Canadians, Australians, Ghanaians, Fijians, Nigerians......... to vote if they live here. Or are some Commonwealth countries First class and others Second class?

I hope we leave the echr. I think we need to have our own legislation, which enshrines rights, but will be a little bit more reasonable about which rights and when.

Not a student of history then? No awareness that it was British lawyers who where the Prime authors of the ECHR (which is independent of the EU anyway)? No underestanding of why they chose to write this legislation shortly after WW2?

I do think favouring Europeans over commonwealth countries is shit though and just another form of racism.

I'm so over this xenophobia of Europeans masquerading as faux-concern for commonwealth countries.

Do you understand the difference in cost, tariffs aside, of trading with your neighbours and trading across the Atlantic?

The UK will continue to trade more with the EU than other countries as it remains our geographically closest neighbour. We will simply be worse off because we will face higher trade costs with the EU.



Well in that case if you do not "feel british" after 20 years of working here... in my view I am glad you couldn't vote.
You had the option to do so and you did not take it.

Another statement showing zero comprehension of what it means to be a migrant and the many shades of grey that exist.

I live in Italy, I love Italy, my husband is Italian, my son was born here, my life is here. I am completely integrated and speak the language fluently. However I don't feel Italian. Because I am British. And my family are still in Britain. My job is connected with the UK. I have financial ties there. I watch British TV, all my cultural references growing up are from there. My oldest friends are there. So why should I have to take Italian citizenship? I have British nationality, roots and ties and an Italian life and residency. But all of a sudden in the last year Mrs May tells me I am a citizen of nowhere and countless shills with a nationalistic agenda pop up on the internet to tell me I deserve what I may have coming to me because I didn't commit fully to one country.

YY jaws

The idea around that though is often that being a Brits in Spain is different because they are giving so much to the economy etc etc. Whereas when you are a foreigner in the uk, then you don't and should strive to become British as it is such a valued thing to be British.

FWIW! Until the referendum, I never felt I was a foreigner or an immigrant. I was a European living in a European country therefore I was 'at home'.

Until the referendum, I never felt I was a foreigner or an immigrant. I was a European living in a European country absolutely!

bananagio I feel your pain! I am shocked at the level of ignorance, staggering!

Yes, but complaining about not being able to vote if you don't want to be a citizen is another matter

Becoming a citizen is not denying your heritage it is embracing your future.

I expect uk chr would look very similar.

As others I'm 100% British but I've never felt British, always European. I've always disliked the side of the national character that is sadly in ascendance at the moment: philistine, xenophobic, arrogant, narrow-minded, nationalist...

Being British has always been mildly embarrassing abroad - linked with football hooligans, fat sunburnt drunk holidaymakers having sex on the street.

I'm a dual national. Grew up being told I was and would never be properly British. Hence I don't feel much affection for Britishness and fairly thankful I have more strings to my bow.

Yes, but complaining about not being able to vote if you don't want to be a citizen is another matter

yer the point I took issue with was your statement below so I don't know why you have come back on another angle above ? As a reminder you said Well in that case if you do not "feel british" after 20 years of working here... in my view I am glad you couldn't vote.You had the option to do so and you did not take it.

Very different angles. Stop twisting things