My thoughts on today’s breakthrough on citizen’s rights.

We will issue an official statement from the3million and British in Europe later but here are my thoughts on today’s breakthrough on citizen’s rights:

Although it’s a relief that there is now an agreement between the EU and the UK after 18 months, the quality of the deal must be assessed and we have grave concerns for the future as the EU has given the British Government the green light to implement settled status.

At first look, we are getting some legal guarantees (citizens’ rights incorporated in the withdrawal treaty and primary legislation), but we are some grave concerns:
Some of these rights are limited in time (the ECJ protection to last for eight years, a limit in time for family reunification) and more importantly, it’s a green light for the British Government to implement settled status.

This means that all 3 million EU citizens (and possibly the 1.2 million British citizens in the EU — each member state will decide) will need to apply to stay, instead of being granted residence rights at the moment.

Considering the incompetence of the Home Office and its current Hostile Environment policy (https://www.the3million.org.uk/hostile-environment) we are worried that the EU citizens most at risk such as carers, people with disability or elderlies will struggle while anybody could be at the receiving end of an erroneous deportation letter.

the3million will do everything we can to make sure all 3 million EU citizens in the UK will be fine after Brexit.