Brexit: what would happen to EU citizens living in UK?

[marghini]

I am a EU citizen and I have been living, working and paying taxes in the UK for a while.

I am really concerned about what would happen to the EU citizens who built a life for themselves and settled here in the UK in case of a Brexit.

Do you think all EU citizens already living in the UK would be pushed out? Or perhaps the government would just stop allowing further EU immigration?

good news about the passport Mistigri! In your case the nightmare scenario would be Brexit + a Le Pen presidency (thankfully unlikely to happen... I think?)

to go back to my question, I suspect the pro-Brexit posters aren't answering it because they actually think that international spouses of EU citizens should not get to stay in the UK.

Agree - seems unlikely. My parents live in France and retired Brits abroad are a sizeable net cash flow into those countries. There would be sufficient pressure for those already established both in other EU and here to retain their residency.

I will vote to leave, in fact I only know one person ( my ex) who will vote to remain. I am not stupid and I am quite clear about why I will vote leave.....immigration, immigration, immigration, and sovereignty. We voted to join the common market....I remember voting. We did not vote to have free movement.
In some areas of this country there are bulging primary schools where few of the kids speak English, and the NHS can't cope. And before anyone says we need to spend more money on education and the NHS .....we wouldn't need to if we didn't have all of these foreigners living here and getting free education and health care.
I know Brexit will affect some companies but I want my country back

Chalala Le Pen might get into the second round but the last regionals showed that the FN is still pretty unelectable above the municipal level.

I guess we're still waiting for one of the brexiteers to come and tell us what the leave campaign is proposing for people in your DH's situation. People like longjumping would probably want to put him on the first plane out (and would then get all upset if anyone dared whisper the word "racist").

My husband can hardly talk about the referendum, he is so furious about the idea of a bunch of old people denying our children's generation the rights and opportunities we have enjoyed for most of our lifetimes.

he is so furious about the idea of a bunch of old people denying our children's generation the rights and opportunities we have enjoyed for most of our lifetimes.

The "bunch of old people" you mention have more life experience than the young and can remember Britain outside the EU. Britain has only been in the EU for a tiny fraction of its history, and over the hundreds of years before 1992 made good progress as a nation. Older people may be more likely to vote for a Brexit but there are still significant numbers of younger people in favour of it too. Rights and opportunities are not just the preserve of the EU by any means.

It seems to me like the type of immigration most of pro-brexit people complain about is the non-EU immigration though.

In fact it sounds like what most pro-brexit people don't want in the UK are the poor, unskilled immigrants perhaps with big families who tend to rely more on state support/ benefits (for example: war refugees).

Most German, Dutch, French immigrants in the UK hardly fit that description..

Mistigri, this is another example of how personal the vote is.

Some people will be furious that their children will be denied freedom of movement. Others are furious that their children have dealt with the consequences of free movement.

I think a really honest debate admits that there are totally separate needs and wants on either side. I find it a bit weird when people try to say I'm not recognising the benefits, we all have different needs and wants and there is a clash.

i am getting annoyed with "leave" being labelled anti immigration. There's a huge difference between being anti immigration and being anti free movement with no relative checks on matching needed skills or having money to bring in.

Two blog posts by actual legal experts which may be of interest to those exercising their right of free movement (some of the comments are also worth reading)

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

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

I haven't read the second one in detail yet as the first is more appliable to me personally but it may provide some useful info for chalala and lonelycher.

I must say that the legal situation appears a little more precarious than I thought, even for those of us with a very long history of residence in their host state :-/

Quoting from article #2 posted by mistigri:

"It is likely therefore that most of those EU citizens who are already exercising their Treaty rights in the UK would be permitted to remain while they continue to exercise those rights, with the prospect of obtaining permanent residence or indefinite leave in due course. Those who are not exercising their rights, usually the unemployed, would however become easier to remove permanently."

Thanks for the links Mistigri. That's a lot of "if" and "might" and "could"...

Still broadly optimistic, although the bottomline is, it would depend on the negotiations and on the goodwill of the UK/other EU countries. Definitely nowhere near as comfortable as our current legally-protected status.

Yes, my reading is that once we lose the protection of being "EU citizens" we become subject to ordinary national immigration law, unless some alternative agreement is reached either inside or outside EFTA. This is not a comfortable position for the non-EU partners of EU citizens, given that UK law is very restrictive when it comes to non-EU immigration.

The problem is that the goal of reducing immigration is incompatible with a free movement agreement, and if the UK curbs EU immigration, the EU will do the same in return.

Even those who are able to remain will face new restrictions, for eg, assuming I get leave to remain in France (which I will), this will not necessarily protect me from the need to obtain work visas or other immigration documents if I wish to work in other EU states.

It's no wonder that the leave campaign doesn't want to address these issues!

Mistigri "It's no wonder that the leave campaign doesn't want to address these issues!"

do you mean people on the government side?

I don't really understand your question lorelei, could you reframe it?

Misti, when you say the "leave campaign" - do you mean people who are in favour of leaving or the as yet unsorted "official" campaign?

'a bunch of old people' well we all know that really means don't we.

Strange isn't it, the UK managed to stand on its own two feet for a 1000 years or so but after 40 years of effectively being ruled by Brussels we are no longer capable.

this will not necessarily protect me from the need to obtain work visas or other immigration documents if I wish to work in other EU states.

oh dear hadn't even considered that. Thankfully me and the DCs would all still have an EU citizenship, but what an utter pain it would be for UK citizens who want to go work in a EU country. Especially for young people starting out, who wouldn't qualify for highly restrictive UK-style immigration criteria.

My little brother just finished a specialised Masters but is having trouble finding a job in our country, so he's expanding his search to Germany and the UK. That's what belonging to the the EU means.

Lorelei There isn't an official leave campaign yet, so no I don't mean that.

As far as I know (and I have looked), no one in any of the "leave" groupings has seriously addressed, in detail, the issue of what happens to the legal status of immigrants (UK in EU and EU in UK). There have been a few newspaper articles about it - mainly saying what springy says on here ie "don't worry it'll be fine ... Vienna convention ... blah blah" but with absolutely zero input from experts in either EU or immigration law.

The issue for the leave campaign is that severely reducing immigration and free movement are fundamentally incompatible, but no one wants to actually come out and say that EFTA membership is not on the cards. Partly because it would scare quite a few potential leave voters, and partly because there is some legitimate disagreement on this within the leave campaign.

The two articles I posted yesterday are from a blog which does some serious writing about other aspects of EU law, although I do not know whether they have any serious immigration law credentials. They were the only pieces of serious legal writing on the subject that I have found anywhere, and they are not recent.

My little brother just finished a specialised Masters but is having trouble finding a job in our country, so he's expanding his search to Germany and the UK.

Good luck to him :) My daughter, who is trilingual, is considering studying in Spain. I thank my lucky stars she is guaranteed to remain an EU citizen.

I do wonder (and worry) about the children of some of my British friends here. Those not born in France, who have no claim to citizenship until they are 18 (and then probably a 1-2 year wait to complete the naturalisation process) could find themselves treated as international students after June 2018 despite having been educated in France.

Misti "The issue for the leave campaign is that severely reducing immigration and free movement are fundamentally incompatible, but no one wants to actually come out and say that EFTA membership is not on the cards"

I don't think it would scare "leave" voters.

I think also the reason why no one wants to address it is because literally no one knows what will happen.

Ultimately I think people will vote for the status quo.

We'll have to agree to disagree there lorelei, because I think talk of a complete exit from all European groupings would worry some sceptically-minded fence-sitters (and a big chunk of the population is still undecided).

This is why the leave campaign does not want to say outright what its preferred relationship with Europe is: EFTA (and continued free movement) would incense most of UKIP, but a clean break could scare the less committed into voting to remain.

But Misti, continued freedom of movement is widely discussed, it's what Brexit voters fear.

It's by no means the only thing Brexit voters fear, or something that all Brexit voters fear.

lorelei and rock And for those us exercising our treaty rights of free movement, that is precisely the problem!

There is disagreement among the various leave campaigners as to what the UK's future relationship with the EU should look like. Some seem to favour the Norway solution (or Switzerland, or Iceland - I forget which is the "meme du jour"). All of these are EFTA members and have signed up for free movement of labour. Switzerland is currently conducting an experiment in what happens if you pick a fight on free movement; we don't know what the outcome will be, but it's reasonable to assume that if they relinquish some of the duties of EFTA membership they will forfeit some of the rights.

I don't think all brexit voters are motivated by immigration, by any means, but it only takes a cursory glance at the brexit threads on here, or indeed anywhere on the Internet, to understand that many leave voters are strongly motivated by the topic of immigration and "controlling our borders".

In the circumstances I think it's understandable that anyone currently exercising their treaty rights is looking for reassurance! Reassurance that the leave campaign can't give, because no one actually knows what will happen.

Misti, I'm sorry, I've lost the plot as to what your question is or what you are trying to say.

I know that you are worried about your freedom of movement.

If you are asking - and I suspect you might be? - do those voting for Brexit care about your freedom of movement, or indeed in my case, my godchildren's freedom of movement - no. I don't. Sorry. If you were doing a job that meant a lot to the country and would do on a points basis (e.g. doctor, nurse, carer) then that's different - because you would be able to get into the UK on the basis of "skills we need therefore we will grant a visa or indeed citizenship".

I feel as if you are - indirectly - asking - do Brexit voters understand fully what giving up freedom of movement means?

if that's your question, my answer is yes.

if your question is - do Brexit voters think politicians will take a vote for Brexit and twist it so that no alteration in freedom of movement happens - yes it is a risk. But let's say (theoretical scenario) that 70% of people voted for Brexit. Any government who took that as "let's continue with freedom of movement" would

a) be risking riots

b) be out of power as soon as possible

c) be encouraging the growth of parties like UKIP who would surely be the next step? if a desperate population went for Brexit and then obtained no change they'd start voting for a party who would create that change.

This is a scary scenario for me too - as a schoolgirl I had nightmares that the BNP would "send me back" to a country I've never seen! but unfortunatley, if every call for control on immigration results in people screaming "racist" we could be looking at those sorts of extremes later, I don't know.

I used to wonder what the point was of UKIP if we were given a referendum. Now I think I know. They need to stand by in case the powers that be get a "Brexit" vote and decide that freedom of movement can continue when they will know, in reality, that a Brexit vote is people voting against freedom of movement.

it is a disgrace really that we are going to the polls without even knowing what the aim is. But then the last few years, what has gone on with the freedom of movement, is a disgrace anyway. I wasn't born in last referendum but the current situation is not what anyone voted for.

I've lost the plot as to what your question is or what you are trying to say.

The title of this thread might give you a clue? What would happen to EU citizens in the event of a brexit.

Those of us posting here are for the most part those whose livelihoods and other rights, and those of their children may be directly affected by the outcome of the referendum. And to add insult to injury, most of us don't even get a vote!