UK to end freedom of movement for EU citizens on day one of Brexit
independent.co.uk
independent.co.uk
See here for a response to this article: https://twitter.com/adamfleming/status/1163335442542059520
> As has been previously been made clear, in the event of no deal, EU citizens and their family members already resident in the UK by 31 October 2019 will be welcome to stay and we want them to do so. They are part of our community, and part of our country and we welcome the contribution that they make. If there is no deal, they will have until 31 December 2020 to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme to protect their status.
However, to answer your question: Coming back from abroad is a complicated thing, even from France inside the EU. Technically, after a hard brexit and without these temporary papers, they are citizens of a foreign nation and the german state has no diplomatic relationship with this state. As such, they could get detained or denied entry if they run into some kind of border control. As such, it is recommended to not leave the country while this is going on. This had tossed quite the wrench into their vacation plans.
There is no longer the 2-year transition period in which EU workers can work in the UK, and UK workers work in the EU.
This means that existing working arrangements will be severely disrupted. Each week, there are hundreds of thousands of people crossing the border, a significant proportion of them for work, including providing on-site support services, training, professional engagements or just cross-channel commuting.
In the absence of a deal it was always made clear that freedom of movement would end immediately or as soon as practical.
See [1] (published in January) about immigration in case of no deal Brexit.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/eu-immigration-af...
The authorities might - either conveniently or due to incompetence - lose relevant documents in the future, at which point you might not be able to prove anymore that you've already had a leave to stay in the UK before 31 October 2019.
This also might be used as leverage in upcoming negotiations with the EU.
While more reputable news sources have not yet picked up this story, if it is indeed true, there is a very marked difference between what is claimed in the article and what has been said by the government to date. The article claims that the Home Secretary will attempt to enact secondary legislation to end freedom of movement, while the gov.uk link in your tweet claims that it will be done ASAP through primary legislation.
If true this is an important difference as we likely won't know until close to the October 31st deadline whether no deal is actually going to happen (though it is clearly more of a risk now than ever), and it implies that the government plan not to wait until they achieve a majority in parliament for the bill to abolish freedom of movement, but instead plan to abolish it any way they can.
> 5. Once free movement has ended from 31 October 2019(1), EU citizens and their family members arriving in the UK will be admitted under UK immigration rules and will require permission (leave to enter or remain). Unlike EU free movement, this will not be a rights-based system so those who do not hold valid immigration permission to be in the UK will be here unlawfully and may be liable to enforcement action. This is a crucial difference between UK immigration law and EU free movement law, which does not require permission from the Home Office for a person to be here lawfully.
So, what happens to an EU national who is ordinarily resident in the UK but has left briefly and is now returning to the UK? What exactly happens at the border? Which documents do they present to guarantee re-entry?
(You quote below the statement that they will be able to show an EU passport, but of course that does not constitute "valid immigration permission to be in the UK")
> The information below is concerned with those EU citizens who arrive in the UK after exit, not those residing here before the UK withdraws from the EU.
People would have a permanent residence certificate will have something to show.
But the important point is the question I asked: have they suggested that a visa will be required to enter the country?
My understanding is that visa-free travel will continue so it should not really matter whether you can prove status.
They haven't. They are just saying that the free movement will end, meaning that as an EU citizen you don't have the automatic right to enter the UK....but no alternative was offered. EU citizens are inelligable for all UK visas right now anyway, because they are specifically worded in such a way and would need to be changed.
>>I am talking about the existing permanent resident status under EU law.
And this might be strange to some, but you can be totally elligable for the full settled status but not for the permanent residence card(I was in this exact situation - I have lived in the UK for 8 years, but the first 4 "don't count" towards the permanent residence status because I was a student without private health insurance(which was only added as a requirement after I started my studies) - but I still got the full Settled Status because that doesn't care why you were here, only if you lived here 5 years or more).
>>My understanding is that visa-free travel will continue so it should not really matter whether you can prove status.
Which again is an issue, because it might mean that legally you don't have the right to be here at all, it's just that the border controls are letting it slide for a while until some other system is put in place. Which causes a whole set of other issues, like this time not counting towards any citizenship application(or making it impossible in the first place, since you are here "illegally"), being unable to rent a place or use the NHS.
Anyway, I think this is a storm in a teacup. In the circumstances EU citizens woild just be waved in as they are now until the dust settles and proper procedures are in place.
That wouldn't mean EU citizens would be here illegally either.
I have exactly ZERO trust that this is the interpretation that the government will take.
When I first tried applying for the permanent residence card, I was told that according to the home office
1) As an EU citizen you need to be exercising your "EU free movement rights" to be in the UK legally
2) If you are a student without private health insurance, you are not exercising your "EU free movement rights"
3) I spoke with multiple Home Office agents, some saying that it means that a student without private health insurance is here illegaly, others saying that no, an EU student without private health insurance is here legally, they are "just not exercising their EU free movement rights". No, they weren't able to explain what exactly they mean by that or which legislation says so.
This strikes me as the exact same situation. No, you don't have the right to be here, but at the same time, you do, but no, we can't point you to any law that would say so.
But if you do not have health insurance this does not count towards gaining permanent residence (and thus citizenship thereafter).
If you need legal advice you should talk to a solicitor specialised in immigration law, not to a random person in a call centre.
And besides, it's just not some random people in the call centre - Home Office's own website said that you only reside in the UK legally if you are exercising your free movement rights - I mean, that clearly reads to me as "if you don't, you are here illegally". It can't work both ways.
No, you need to meet additional criteria. This is explicit in EU law [1] (and very well covered online), so I'm puzzled as to the advice you received.
Since you were looking for a legal references regarding students, note that [1] is also explicit that students should have "comprehensive sickness insurance cover" (the dispute here is whether access to NHS qualifies. UK government argues that it does not).
[1] Article 7 of https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...
The right to permanent residence after five years is then restricted to "Union citizens and their family members who have resided in the host Member State in compliance with the conditions laid down in this Directive during a continuous period of five years". So it depends heavily on how those conditions are interpreted.
edit: the Italian SSN (Servizio Sanitario Nazionale) was basically modeled on the NHS.
As I understand it, that was always a requirement due to the wording of the treaties (or regulations / directives).
It is just that UK government hadn't previously highlighted that they viewed NHS entitlement as not counting as "medical insurance".
There is supposed to be an ongoing dispute with the Commission over this point.
See here and links from it: https://www.freemovement.org.uk/comprehensive-sickness-insur...
"If your application is successful, a letter will be emailed to you confirming your settled or pre-settled status. The letter you get from the Home Office which confirms your status will include a link to an online service. You can use this service to view and prove your status."
This is more about proving your status to employers and such. Border agents will, presumably, be able to see your status electronically through their own system.
However, like other countries that do not need a visa to visit the UK, border agents could still refuse entry if they believe (for example) you intend to seek work rather than just visit.
They said EU citizens in the UK are welcome to stay and EU tourists will be welcome without visas, which is common sense, really.
Therefore I don't see the need to scare everyone. There are not going to start denying entry to EU citizens.
And I write this as an EU citizen in the UK.
However, in many cases the panic already exists, in no small part because the people running the UK refuse to be held to their own previous promises, even when it comes to what they want from Brexit.
Then you’ll be clearly surprised if you knew what all they can access crossing the border.
My comment was based on personal experience of going through secondary inspection with border agents in various countries. All of the FVEY countries share a frightening amount of information with each other’s border agents. I’m not specifically claiming they have medical records, but literally anything that is in a government database (I’m not being hyperbolic there, just prefer not to be specific as to what I’ve been shown on their screen that I felt they had no right to know) is accessible to them if the agent wants and knows how.
The new Home Secretary wants to institute a different regime from day one of no deal, which deviates from original plans and creates a whole range of issues for EU nationals with and without settled status who are resident.
While it is aimed at voters to show that they'll be treating new arrivals differently, the systems and laws and all of the bodies that deal with EU nationals are not equipped to differentiate between existing residents and new arrivals.
Only about a third of EU nationals have applied for settled status and this new messaging from the incoming Home Secretary is saying the hostile environment measures must be eagerly applied to all EU nationals without it. Employers, landlords, banks, health service providers and border officials all have the burden to verify a person's legal status and the majority of EU nationals will be unable to demonstrate their status from day one. Their status furthermore isn't protected by primary legislation and for most people only amounts to being in a digital system that must be checked online.
Most parties involved in having to check resident's status is not trained in doing that, in so far it is even practicable from day one of no deal. And it most certainly will create discrimination, making it more likely that those that have a harder time demonstrating their rights will be unfairly rejected or skipped over, or be faced with additional burdens to prove status.
The real world consequences for people affected could be not finding a place to rent, being evicted, losing a bank account or being unable to open one, being denied health services or being asked to pay for services that should be free, being denied a job, being let go, or simply being skipped over by employers. This all can happen to people who have been in the UK for decades but are unable to easily demonstrate their status. This is not hypothetical stuff, this already happens but the occurrence would jump up by an order of magnitude as the result of the course taken here.
The whole process take about 15 minutes, especially if you have an social insurance number.
It wasn't very funny and we don't really know what will happen.
And it may take 15 minutes if you have had continuous employment or have been drawing benefits with no gaps at all for five years AND they are able to verify that in an automated way. Hundreds of thousands will be spending much more time on their application. And although the overall process is pretty lenient and fairly well done, many people are going to have trouble with it.
If you fall under a less certain scenario, you may be reluctant to apply at all, because it doesn't guarantee you'll get approved and the consequences of not being approved are daunting.
Under no deal, failure to be accepted for settled status equates to being officially recognised as a resident with no workable legal status and that is a very, very bad place to be in. And if you don't apply by the end of 2020, you lose out altogether under current plans. Note that with 3 million EU citizens, plenty of people are simply not even aware of the consequences or the need to apply in the first place.
My wife, which has been in the country for the same time but has not been under continuous employment will have a much harder time proving residence status and will require going though ton of documentation.
The 15 minutes are a fiction.
Yup. This is setting up for Windrush fiasco all over again, just on a much larger scale.
The reporting is light on details, because the 'how' has not been drawn up yet. What has been newly decided is to immediately kill freedom of movement in practice. And the UK does most of its border controls behind the border, by making landlords, banks, hospitals and doctors do checks. Even if what Patel means to implement is purely what border officials at airports do to check people's status as they come in (and I very much doubt this is all she intends), it reinforces the message to employers, health service providers, banks and landlords that EU nationals are a higher liability if they turn out not to have the required status. The Govt may very well even advise landlords for instance that they won't hold them to account with the usual criminal penalties for accidentally renting to a EU national without settled status or other valid migration status, many landlords will simply eschew EU nationals going forward because it's safer. Messaging like this underlines that a EU ID is no longer a sufficient signal that a person is in all likelihood a legal resident and that a tough line is meant to be taken against EU nationals.
We were talking about it last night and neither of us have a clue how you'd even go about getting a UK visa in an EU country. Yes, people who live here already and don't leave are "good" until 2020. However if this does go ahead there will be tens of thousands of people who cant (for example) go home and visit their parents over Christmas without a risk they might be told "nah" at the border.
I believe that in her specific case she can't get settled status as she (despite being here 8 years) had a period a few years ago where she worked on cruise ships so was out of the country for > 6 months.
There is currently no system in place to allow re-entry for people with either "settled" or "pre-settled" status (that's why this announcement is mad.) But your girlfriend should 100% absolutely as soon as possible make sure she has pre-settled status.
This can be proven by applying for a permanent residence card.
It has always been a sensible idea to keep evidence of residence and work in order to prove your status although it seems that a surprisingly large number of people never bothered.
In any case, I would think that anyone would have pay slips, P60s, council tax bills.
Citizens of EU/EEA countries can currently travel to and work in other EU/EEA countries (including the UK) with essentially no restrictions. There are currently around 3 million citizens of other EU countries resident in the UK, taking advantage of freedom of movement to avoid the tedious, expensive, and time-consuming process of obtaining UK citizenship (or just never feeling the need).
A system has been introduced allowing these residents to apply for something called "settled" or "pre-settled" status, indicating that they are habitually resident in the UK. This will give them the ability to remain in the UK legally, eventually being able to obtain the appropriate long-term rights.
However, it's a virtual certainty that hundreds of thousands of these people will end up not being registered for various reasons. Additionally, there is AFAIK no process in place for performing checks using this system at the UK border. With the proposed approach, it's extremely likely that many people previously using free movement rights to travel between the UK and the rest of Europe will find themselves stuck in a limbo where they have been resident in the UK for a long time (and it's their home), but end up being unable to re-enter the country because they have no actual legal basis for that residency any more.
This wasn't expected to be an urgent problem, as previous plans for departure from the EU were to continue allowing EU/EEA citizens freedom of movement into the UK until December 2020, eventually implementing controls as systems became available. This change in policy makes this much more urgent; there are a variety of issues affecting people who travel a lot, particularly in the immediate aftermath.
The good news is that this approach will collapse in the face of reality because it's totally insane and will result in widespread chaos, and it's unlikely to even make it to the level of actual firm policy at any point.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populati...
https://fullfact.org/europe/how-many-uk-citizens-live-other-...
Still it's a non-negligible number
So for you to say that the UK is holding EU residents hostage is not only unfair, but very untrue.
The UK is very obviously attempting to bargain with the rights of UK-resident EU citizens. It is both totally fair and true to say so.
The UK is not obviously attempting to bargain with rights at all when they have were the first to make displaced nationals rights known whatever the outcome and the same has yet to be codified with other members as the EU has no single rule to cover them.
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/british...
What makes you think that? It's in the best interest of the EU administration to make leaving the EU as painful as possible.
Heads: If leaving is an inherently good thing to do, then the EU had already failed.
Tails: If the EU has not failed, leaving is inherently a bad thing to do.
There is no need for the EU to do more than look after its own interests. One of those interests would, I suspect, be a treaty modification to make permanent and standard the balance-of-payment mechanism which has enraged many Leave supporters.
I do not think anybody actually expected the article 50 to be triggered. I think that most expected that event of as state leaving I think the an ad-hoc solution would have been found. Instead UK immediately triggered it with no preparation.
Expecting to unwind 50 years of deep entanglement in 2 years was always a delusion.
I mean, clearly the government's policy of threatening the EU with a no-deal brexit is just not working, so the next stop is using EU citizens as bargaining chips(I remember saying this 3 years ago, that we will end up being used for exactly this purpose once the time comes. I don't know whether I should start packing my bags now or later, the anxiety level is just through he roof at the moment).
1) this would mean that the government (executive) would need to bring in primary legislation to allow EU citizens to continue to work and live in the UK. (those who have registered I think would be ok. I'm grateful for corrections on this point though) This is something they have promised, but not actually delivered (Which I suspect will be running theme.)
2) haulage companies would need to change drivers (and probably truck) at the border (possibly the EU side, which would be interesting, as I'm not sure how haulage licenses work in practice. I know multidrop/mixed purpose [as in deliver x and pickup y are expressly not allowed])
3) as far as I'm aware, any truck driver delivering stuff would need a temporary work visa, which requires a sponsor and load of cash and time (The first is difficult, the last in very short supply.)
If anyone has links to legislation that contradicts this, I'm all ears.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/eu-immigration-af...
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/aug/19/threat-to-e...
Are wages going to shoot up immediately because of labor shortage?
If the margin of profit is like low single digit, the labour cost rises too fast will just lead to the business to shut down. In more profitable business though, what you said might happen, like software engineering I would guess. Or the position goes remote.
"…temporary transitional arrangements will apply from 31 October 2019 to provide some continuity for EU citizens and businesses in the UK. The transition period will be in place until 31 December 2020."
This was essentially "continue free movement for a bit until we get a new immigration system in place". This announcement suggests that this is no longer the case. It's unlikely to happen because it will be literal chaos, but it's important not to underestimate the incompetence of the current UK government.
The document from January very clearly states that free movement would end immediately (or as soon as practicle) in case of no deal.
E.g. "5. Once free movement has ended from 31 October 2019"
As I wrote previously this is nothing new.
The transitional arrangements are for EEA citizens already in the UK, and I haven't read anything that suggests they want to change that.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/eu-immigration-af...
This is supported by earlier statements from the former Home Secretary Said Javid: "If there's a no-deal, we won’t be able to immediately distinguish between those Europeans that were already here before March 29, and those who came after – and therefore, as a result, I wouldn’t expect employers to do anything different than they do today. There will need to be some kind of sensible transition period. I mean, these are the kinds of things I’ve been working on for months and months."
Now, some people assume that this means EU citizens are immediately kicked out. That's obviously not the case, hence this "transitional period".
The policy document says that "freedom of movement" ends – you are correct that it is written plainly, and it is technically correct - freedom of movement rights under EU law will end.
However, the position of the previous government was that EEA citizens would be able to continue to freely enter the UK for the transitional period—even if no deal was secured—up until December 2020. That means that while "freedom of movement" as an EU-granted right would end, there would still be effective "freedom of movement" into the UK for EU workers, explicitly because there will be no system in place to differentiate between UK-resident and non-UK-resident EU citizens at the border.
The transitional period applies to immigration into the UK while the new "skills-based immigration system" is implemented. You can see this from the policy document:
"The details of the UK’s future skills-based immigration system are set out in a white paper published on 19 December 2018. It will take some time to implement this new system… therefore, temporary transitional arrangements will apply from 31 October 2019… The transition period will be in place until 31 December 2020."
The paragraph immediately above says:
"The information below is concerned with those EU citizens who arrive in the UK after exit, not those residing here before the UK withdraws from the EU."
This is explicitly not to do with EU citizens who are already resident in the UK.
Nothing in what they have just said implies that the "temporary transitional arrangements" will no longer exist.
The only worry, which is real, is that the government may not have time to set them up.
I don't see that as a change of policy, more like posturing by the government before a new negotiation push, and over the top reaction from the opposition.
Further, that they insist this contribution can be solved by “future technology” but cannot actually point to any such future technology only adds to the farce.
It's just not possible logically, and efforts to paint it as a 'both sides' problem is completely dishonest.
We can't just solve this by deciding the EU is impossible to leave and giving up either, because again there's that pesky bit in the constitution about parliaments not being able to bind their successors. Whilst we have other international commitments about stuff like war crimes which could technically be argued to violate this, irrevocably transferring the power to create laws across many areas to a foreign body goes right to the core of what it's meant to prevent. Clever arguments about how we could technically leave, it's just not possible in practice don't solve this - our constitution is based on principles, it's not computer code where if you find a way around the literal rules you can get through.
And the backstop bonds the hands of a future parliament as much as any international agreement does. That’s a completely ridiculous argument. The backstop isn’t magically more powerful than any other treaty a country may sign and have their parliaments approve.
Also, most of the international agreements the UK has signed up to are unilaterally revokable - unlike the backstop - for pretty much that reason. There's a few exceptions, but the ones I've seen Brexit opponents cite are things like war crimes restrictions, not giving up control over most of out domestic laws.
Americans should also bear in mind that the rule against parliaments binding their successors is the only protection against (say) a party voting to transfer law-making power to a body they think will be more pro-business than the opposition. There's no requirement for a supermajority or a referendum, as would be required to amend your country's constitution. (In fact we don't even have a codified constitution that can be amended!) Our joining the EU scraped through the House of Commons with a 50.7% majority basically on the whim of one party.
The elected representatives of the EU and the UK agreed to a deal. A deal in which the EU compromised a lot (the backstop applying to the entire UK was a UK demand, insisted upon by May to retain DUP support).
That agreed upon deal was then ratified by the EU parliament, but rejected by the UK parliament.
Considering the UK is the party that is rejecting the deal, one would imagine they would be the ones responsible for at the very least stating what they want. But they cannot do that because there is no version of Brexit that has majority support. If they move in one direction away from the deal, they lose left wing votes while gaining fewer right wing votes. If they move in the other direction, they gain a few right wing votes, while losing more left wing votes.
That’s why the UK has constantly insisted the EU compromise, without ever explaining what that compromise should look like (other than, no backstop, which then raises the impossible desire to both maintain an open border between Ireland and NI, while the UK insists on controlling its borders and having a different customs regime on one side of that border).
It’s stupid, and the UK’spoliticians are entirely at fault here. The EU has been compromising to a fault, honestly. They should have listened to Macron and not extended the deadline. At least you wouldn’t have an incompetent lying charlatan leading the UK during Brexit. You’d only have an incompetent leading the UK.
I think this should be:
The EU have offered the best [deal they want] given the UK negotiation red-lines [and the UK's lack of leverage].
The UK may have a relatively strong economy as a Country, but it's currently against the EU super state in the negotiations. The EU has most of the power when brokering a deal and this is just one small step towards making the negotiation table more even.
> It's not an adversarial negotiation, it's a future partnership.
Every political engagement is adversarial, there is of course common grounds, but each side wants to 'win'. The EU wants to remove all incentive for other member states to leave to safe guard its own future existence as a super state.
I really disagree with that. A dysfunctional EU is worse than for the EU than countries leaving.
The EU could do far more to "punish" the UK. So far they've been quite accommodating, like agreeing to keep the entire UK in the customs union for the backstop rather than splitting NI and GB.
I agree that a dysfunctional EU is something they want to avoid, but I think that's exactly why they want to prevent other Countries from leaving. A dysfunctional EU is one without lots of member states (therefore lots of power + economy). Given that member states currently have so very little individual veto control, you need to have a majority of states (or elected persons) acting in bad faith for them really to become a problem.
> The EU could do far more to "punish" the UK.
Maybe, but possibly not without spooking other member states. I think the UK's only saving grace is that everybody is watching very closely.
> So far they've been quite accommodating, like agreeing to keep the entire UK in the customs union for the backstop rather than splitting NI and GB.
If you look at the deal offered it's effectively membership without the power to vote, that sounds great from the EU's perspective, two birds with one stone.
It is a mess, but if UK has to leave that is the only way. And some UK citizens will return home.
> but if UK has to leave that is the only way.
No it absolutely fucking is not. The UK government has always had the option of treating them better and chosen not to do it. Being hostile to immigration is a choice. Ending free movement is a choice; the UK is not required to end free movement to leave the EU (see Norway).
Also marriage is almost universal reason worldwide for permenant residence. So the people married to UK nationals will eventually be able to get permanent residence in UK and vice versa.
And again, not getting what you want is not an excuse for inflicting hardship on innocent bystanders.
Firstly, there will be accommodations for existing EU immigrants, read the actual government website and not some jumped up news article [1].
Secondly, I agree holding people hostage is immoral, but you're conveniently forgetting the Irish backstop clause.
> And it's not likely to be effective either.
Thirdly, the idea of negotiations is that both sides have something the other side wants to negotiate about. So far negotiations have been very one-sided, with the UK wanting to continue negotiations and the EU cutting it off completely (hence May submitting the same deal three times to parliament despite demands made to change it). The idea of having a large stick is not having to using it, but sometimes it's needed to encourage the donkey to move.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/eu-immigration-af...
What about it? This was a British government proposal in the first place. https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/the-backstop-was... / https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/norther...
And it doesn't hold anyone hostage, but the reverse: it guarantees freedom for people affected by the border with Ireland.
I know the UK wanted to prevent a harder border, but I'm not sure who was specifically responsible for the final wording [1].
In my opinion one of the greatest issues was:
> In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union [..]
Essentially meaning that unless the UK is able to come to terms that the EU agree on, the UK could be forced to implement all laws as dictated by the EU. (Remember, the purpose of the EU was for trade, so technically that means all laws, not just those related to trade.) The only way out of this is potentially a hard border, something they really don't want either. All the EU has to do is to reject all deals offered by the UK and the UK has to remain a silent paying member state indefinitely.
There is of course the point that no parliament can bind a future parliament to any agreement, but this has consequences for market stability too.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_backstop#Initial_Backsto...