Hacker News Reader

Comment by rjsw | Hacker News Reader

Your analogy isn't accurate, Poles in Britain still have EU passports so can move around as they wish.

It looks like a fair number of people applied for settled status in the UK just in case they wanted to use it to work part of the year here.

Brexit is bad but it is worse for native British people than those with EU passports.

View on HN

> Brexit is bad but it is worse for native British people than those with EU passports.

The Brits that I know in various European countries have been dealt with quite civilly, as opposed to some of the people that I know that had moved to the UK where they find themselves suddenly without rights after being solid contributors to that society, sometimes for decades.

What makes you write this particular sentence?

By "native", I mean someone with a UK passport living in the UK at the cut-off date of Jan 2021. They are now unable to work in the EU without a work permit for a specific job.

In theory, a Pole who applied for and got "settled status" in the UK can move around to work just as they could before Brexit. I have no idea how well applying for this works though.

Ah, you mean for Brits to go to work outside of the UK now versus someone originally from Poland who would want to go to work somewhere else in the EU. Right, but that's mirrored by how hard it would be for someone else from some EU country to come to work in the UK now. The UK very explicitly negotiated for that.

The thread suggested that Poles in the UK had lost freedom of movement, I'm just pointing out that this isn't the case.

>suddenly without rights after being solid contributors to that society, sometimes for decades.

This is a stretch by any measure. I'm an estern european in UK. Once I applied for ILR(Indefinite leave to remain) I can go and come with 0 problems. Not sure what "without rights" you are talking about but brexit doesn't bother me in any way.

We have plenty at work that arrived in uk around 2-3 years ago and they continue their lives without problems, go home for holidays and so on. Some work for us as self-empleyer/contractors. Not even those have any issues.

There are countless stories of people who have had to go through the most absurd contortions in order to be allowed to stay in the UK. I'm happy that that didn't happen to you but don't dismiss this as 'a stretch by any measure' because things worked smoothly for you.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com