Who files these lawsuits? I can't imagine anybody in their right mind would have thought they could win it. Is this just for the lawyers' 15 minutes of fame?
That's a very dishonest and childish way to summarise the case. She is a legal long-term resident in an EU nation - France - having lived there for >15 years. However long-term residency status alone does not permit you to vote in local elections, you have to be a full-blown citizen. And given that you cannot vote in UK elections if you've lived abroad for more than fifteen years, she is now in a sort of limbo where she doesn't really have any local representation.
There are many stupid things regarding Brexit (primarily, that it took place at all) but this was a worthwhile thing to try to resolve even if it was a bit of a long shot.
> And given that you cannot vote in UK elections if you've lived abroad for more than fifteen years, she is now in a sort of limbo where she doesn't really have any local representation.
I don't really think that should be relevant to France's laws. Britain could after all change their laws.
But I do think this woman should be able to vote in these local elections as a legal resident. That should be the case regardless of citizenship. But it seems that would require changes to French law.
I think anyone living in France (or anywhere else) legally should be allowed to vote in local elections. So I think the laws should be changed to allow this Brit to vote in these elections.
Of course that's a bit beside the point in the case though. I guess that option is only open to EU citizens. I find that odd, but I guess that's the law.
I have some sympathy with the filer. EU citizenship meant that living in France for 15+ years didn’t grant a separate citizenship and suddenly the filer could not vote anywhere as a result of being absent from Britain too long.
Realistic countries need to process citizenship for former EU citizens who have been living in their country for long enough to achieve citizenship.
With 15 years of residence, I believe they're eligible to apply immediately. They'll just need to pass the language test and the culture/history test. Get the background checks and the other processes done.
They are likely not legally allowed to remain in France at the present time. They do not have French citizenship, nor a residency permit, since none was required while they had EU citizenship. This will complicate (though perhaps not bar) any citizenship application.
If the filer can prove that they speak French and have knowledge of French culture, they can gain French citizenship. It might require taking a few classes, but the most difficult hurdle (having lived there (legally?) for over five years) has been passed.
It'll take them more effort, but after living in France for long enough to lose UK voting rights I should hope that the rest of the citizenship requirements should be easy.
This assumes the filer wants French citizenship, obviously: if they want to stick with permanent residence but still want to vote then there's no solution, you can't have it both ways.
Can someone smarter than me explain what this means in simpler terms? I feel a bit lost after reading this, I hold triple citizenship (Canadian, Slovak, UK) and live in the UK, but not sure how this affects me
Ah okay thanks, I had a feeling this was the case, although Slovakia is a bit funny about dual citizenships (I think officially it's not allowed, but a grey area)
Yeah, I wouldn't talk too much anywhere about having multiple citizenship in multiple countries, and especially not in Slovakia, because it can be taken away from you.
IANAL, but I think it means the "EU citizenship" is merely a convenient shorthand for "citizenship of an EU member state" and not a citizenship in its own right.
As Slovakia is a member state of the EU, this will not itself directly affect you.
Basically UK citizens living in the EU can not vote in local elections anymore, as UK left the EU and therefore they „citizen of an EU member state“ requirement is no longer fulfilled.
I am not a lawyer, nor do I know more details, but I would guess it should not change anything for you, as your slovakian citizenship should suffice.
The limitation on local elections may differ per member state. France doesn't allow voting for local elections without citizenship but other countries do.
The only thing that changed is that UK nationals no longer have the status of "citizen" in the EU (unless they have dual citizenship, of course). What that means exactly differs per country.
IANAL but I don't think this changes much in practice, or was ever an unexpected outcome, really.
I suspect it won't affect you since you have citizenship in the country where you live.
Long story short, EU citizens have certain rights in some member states. When the UK left, UK citizens are no longer entitled to any rights given to "EU citizens" in their country of residence.
Not sure whether I'm smarter than you but I have studied EU Law. There are provisions in the EU Treaties that give citizens of member states an "EU citizenship" (see Art. 20 TFEU). Those EU citizenships give EU citizens – among other rights – the right to live and work in any other EU country and vote in local elections [1] Before Brexit British citizens had this EU citizenship as well.
The question that arose after Brexit was, whether British citizens would possibly retain this citizenship, which could have meant that they would retain the rights that come with it as well. There are different arguments why British citizens might have kept this EU citizenship, for example it might be argued that the withdrawal of a _state_ from the Union can not mean that _individuals_ loose their rights or it could be argued that such a loss of rights would be disproportionate.
The CJEU has now interpreted the treaties in such a way that the withdrawal does indeed mean that individuals loose their EU citizenship, arguing that "the authors of the Treaties thus established an inseparable and exclusive link between possession of the nationality of a Member State and not only the acquisition, but also the retention, of the status of citizen of the Union".
So this ruling might have had a big effect if the CJEU decided in a different way. The way they decided now, everything stays the same. If you are in possession of another EU member states citizenship (Slovakia) this will not change anything for you, you will remain an EU citizen.
[1] Technically many of those rights were already in the treaties before the introduction of the EU citizenship, so it is a bit "declaratory" in nature.
Won’t ever forgive or forget Brexit. Took away our rights, and the rights of our kids, to live in Europe and to be European. My contempt is boundless.
Edit: Bit surprised at some of these responses. You absolutely can use the word “European” to mean “a participant in the political project that is Europe”. This has nothing to do with ethnicity.
Funny thing is that the Commonwealth used to convey a kind of free movement; and prior to that Empire citizens had the right to migrate to the UK. This was ended when people started actually using it in large numbers.
I assume that you're objecting to the use of the word "right" as opposed to, say, "privilege"?
The EU itself phrases freedom of movement as a "right"[0].
Arguably, every human should have the right to move to any country they want to, and in an ideal world every human would have that right.
That is obviously not the case now, but the rolling back of the partial progress that had been made, and the consequent creation of a boundary between the UK and the remainder of the EU that hadn't existed previously, is rightly condemned.
Yes, thank you. You've phrased it more elegantly than myself.
Freedom of movement is a human right. The right to be European is not a human right. The overuse and dilution of the term "right" to mean "anything I want to, or am allowed, to do" is a serious pet peeve of mine...
When the UK was still a member of the EU, it explicitly negotiated that the EU rules denied access to the EU for non-EU citizens. It then negotiated its own exit from the EU, and decided that it didn't even want to ask for an exception.
Ergo, the UK government is definitely to blame. While others may also take the blame in hypotheticals that never happened, if the UK had not done what it chose to do, then this wouldn't be the state we are in now.
The continent that the US, Cuba, Mexico and Argentina are a part of is called "The Americas", frequently split into "North America" and "South America" because of the isthmus at its center.
Yes, there's a problem that residents of the United States of America (just one country within North America/the Americas) adopted the term "American" to describe (mostly) only themselves. But there are plenty of sporting and diplomatic events that make clear that "American" has broader meaning than "the USA".
The situation in the UK is different from the situation with, say, residents of the USA and Mexico. The latter are separated by an arbitrary and mobile political boundary that in many place can be walked across rather easily (even where the boundary is the Rio Grande). The UK is an island and this has created both a physical boundary with the rest of the continent and (largely because of that) a centuries old sense of isolation.
The years that the UK was a part of (initially the EEC and then later) the EU saw a diminishment of that sense of isolation and a growing awareness of the cultural and historical linkage between the people living in the UK and those in the rest of Europe. Cheap and fast travel also contributed to that.
>that residents of the United States of America (just one country within North America/the Americas) adopted the term "American" to describe (mostly) only themselves.
The use of America to, in English, refer specifically to the English-speaking residents of North America long precedes 1776.
Further, the English language's use of "America/Americans" to refer specifically to the United States and its people as opposed to Chileans or Mexicans is consistent in every major European language except Spanish.
>But there are plenty of sporting and diplomatic events that make clear that "American" has broader meaning than "the USA".
Yes, the Organization of American States (headquartered in Washington DC) = "plenty of sporting and diplomatic events".
I will pose the same question that Veen did elsewhere, regarding the hysterical claim that after Brexit, Britons are no longer European. Are Swiss and Norwegians European? Why, or why not?
> Yes, the Organization of American States (headquartered in Washington DC) = "plenty of sporting and diplomatic events".
Pan American Games / Copa América / Summit of the Americas / Pan American Treaty / I could go on.
> I will pose the same question that Veen did elsewhere, regarding the hysterical claim that after Brexit, Britons are no longer European.
"Being European" is a relatively new idea that emerged in the aftermath of two world (but euro-centric) wars. It didn't really have a geographic locus per se, but referred to a certain kind of committment to a certain idea of "Europe". The UK did not consider itself part of that idea for several decades after the end of WWII, and arguably a majority of the population never really did (even if they supported the idea "for those people over there").
I have a couple of friends who are long time residents in the USA, but were born in countries within the EU. They don't know each other, but when asked how they think about their status they both reply "I'm a European who lives in the USA". I have a hard time imagining anyone from the UK in the same situation ever saying this.
>Pan American Games / Copa América / Summit of the Americas / Pan American Treaty / I could go on.
Oh, come now. You yourself acknowledged that "the Americas" refers to North and South America. I don't need to explain why "Pan American" isn't the same thing as "American". And as I said before, the English use of "America/American" to specifically refer to the USA and its people is shared by all European languages other than Spanish.
>"Being European" is a relatively new idea that emerged in the aftermath of two world (but euro-centric) wars. It didn't really have a geographic locus per se, but referred to a certain kind of committment to a certain idea of "Europe". The UK did not consider itself part of that idea for several decades after the end of WWII, and arguably a majority of the population never really did (even if they supported the idea "for those people over there").
I don't disagree at all about the historical distinguishing between the UK and "Europe". (Insert "FOG COVERS CHANNEL / EUROPE CUT OFF" anecdote here.) But that is orthogonal to whether Brexit made the UK suddenly not "European" (at least, any more than before), as the other poster's wailing claimed.
You also didn't answer my/Venn's question. Are the Swiss and Norwegians European, and why/why not?
Now, it's entirely possible that, should the EU survive, perhaps a century from now, "Europe/European" will refer specifically to the EU and its residents. But we're not there yet and not even the most fanatic pro-EU Remainer in the UK would claim this. (The relevance of this question to the aforementioned discussion of "America/American"'s meaning is left as an exercise for the reader.)
Swiss and Norwegian folk are from Europe. They are countries in Europe.
Are they are a part of the post-WWII effort to forge a European identity i.e. being European. Seems to me that this likely varies generationally and also individually. I suspect there are numerous Swiss and Norwegian people that are meet this criterion of "being European", but it may not be the majority. Of course, the same could be said for the populations of the member states of the EU too.
It is definitely true of the UK, where there are lots of people who really do think of themselves, even with Brexit essentially complete, as Europeans, and lots of other people who absolutely reject that identity. For those who do think of themselves as European, Brexit has made it much, much harder for them to live as if that had real consequences.
1) as one of those people, I moved while it was still a right, and am only allowed to stay because it's a grandfathered-in right for people like me. The right — as in, you don't need to ask for permission — no longer exists for single citizenship Brits.
2) Do you also insist on calling Venezuelans "American"? Because that's also technically accurate, in a way most people consider hair-splitting.
> 2) Do you also insist on calling Venezuelans "American"? Because that's also technically accurate, in a way most people consider hair-splitting.
I find the distinction worth making because I refuse to let pro-EU people co-opt the European identity for their own purposes. I am British and European. Whether Britain is in the EU is irrelevant.
OK, so you're British and European, but (now) you cannot travel, work or live freely across the vast majority of the territory that even you would call Europe. Your "European-ness" would seem to be some sort of cultural thing rather than any set of actual rights or legal identity.
That’s only true in conversational contexts where the speaker wants to obfuscate the difference between the EU and Europe. That’s a political development, not a linguistic one.
Accession to the EU isn't dependent on other countries' applications. If Iceland, Norway, the UK, Switzerland or Liechtenstein decided one day they suddenly wanted to be in the EU, they wouldn't go in a queue behind the other applications - they'd rightly be assessed as "Generally aligned" with the all parts of the EU acquis and the process would be relatively quick, all things considered.
Of course they won't reapply any time soon, but that's nothing to do with Ukraine, Macedonia, Turkey, Bosnia, Serbia and all the other countries who are at various staged of the application process.
Not that it really matters, I think it would be unwise to readmit the UK unless EU membership becomes overwhelmingly popular, and I don't think that's going to take less than 15 years.
I agree with this, but what I find scary is the prospect that if the gap is too long, you will see the emergence of another generation that is as parochial and anti-Europe as the one I grew up in. The political leaders that took the UK into the EEC in the 1970s did so in the face of a great deal of public opposition.
If I try to be optimistic, perhaps cheap holidays in the sun will keep another generation feeling as connected to Europe as those in the 17-40 range currently seem to be. But I'm not an optimist by nature.
The UK will not survive this. The government's next order of business is to tear up the Northern Ireland Protocol. This unilateral breach of the Withdrawal Agreement reverts the UK to 'no-deal' status. i.e. massive economic pain when we have just gone into a downturn. This will be the straw that breaks Scotland away to return closer to the EU, and maybe even Northern Ireland too.
Welcome to the not-so-united Kingdom of England and Wales. The Queen will die along with her Kingdom as a symbolic cherry on the cake.
If that happens, it will be interesting to see which of the UK’s constituent nations thrives on its own. My money is on England. The Scots will quickly find they can’t fund their current level of public expenditure without English taxpayer’s money.
I'm sorry that the lady couldn't vote, perhaps she should apply for citizenship to the country she lives in if she wants to vote.
In Sweden "Settled" people can only vote for local governments, not for the Riksdag (Parliament).. that privilege is for citizens only, for example.
But, it's hardly "weird" that British people do not have EU citizenship automatically anymore, EU citizenship is granted on top of your normal citizenship if your country is a member of the EU, which the UK no longer is.
The same mechanism that turned Brits to EU citizens in the 70s is the same process by which those rights are no longer applicable to British citizens today, what did people think they were voting for?
Surely this is Hardly "news", or maybe I'm too optimistic about how much people understand about the politics of the world around them.
I would expect expats to know more than the usual uninformed (or misinformed) British citizen living domestically.
Brexiters did, indeed, in general, think they were voting to strip the rest of us of our rights, and they succeeded in doing so - they thought that this was worth "protecting us from Brussels" or preventing immigration or that it would mean £350 million a week to the NHS or whatever else.
This court case (and a handful of similar ones) was a last-ditch attempt of people stripped of their rights to keep them.
Yeah, but my understanding is the case was about municipal elections (like the local mayor/council etc.)
In the UK the rules are the same as Sweden where any resident can vote. But it seems many countries have citizenship requirements even for the municipal elections.
The UK has citizenship requirements as well. British, Irish and Commonwealth citizen residents can vote. In local elections only, EU citizens can vote as well. This is because the EU forces that right, and the UK has not repealed it (yet?).
> The same mechanism that turned Brits to EU citizens in the 70s is the same process by which those rights are no longer applicable to British citizens today, what did people think they were voting for?
I’m not sure that’s trivially obvious. The process of joining the EU is complex and extremely well documented and understood.
The process of leaving is a couple paragraphs with zero specifics.
Ultimately the question boiled down to, having been granted EU citizenship, on what basis was that citizenship revoked? If EU citizenship is just an extension of your national citizenship to an EU member, then reason for loss is clear.
But if your EU citizenship is distinct and additional to your national citizenship, then what basis was it revoked, and what gave the revoking entity the right to strip a person of their EU citizenship?
Clearly the courts strong believe that EU citizenship is directly tied to your citizenship of an EU member. But until the ruling was made, that answer wasn’t absolutely clear, and why shouldn't UK citizens make a Hail Mary attempt at preserving their EU citizenship? The down side of bringing the case and loosing is a lose of time and money, but winning would fundamentally change many peoples relationship with the EU.
Therein lies the crux of the problem - nobody knew exactly what a vote for Brexit would mean, beyond somehow leaving the EU and "sending Johnny Foreigner back".
Many politicians and the tabloid media spread many dubious claims, and plenty outright lies, about the purported benefits of Brexit. For example, fisherman were made to believe French and Spanish boats would no longer fish in their waters - which never came true. This particular one example is a good one, because it demonstrates well that this group, who rely on cheap foreign labour, didn't know what they were voting for.
People who believed that Brexit wouldn't overall have a negative effect were the ones lured by it's less than noble claims. One lesson of the past decade is that these "duped" people aren't victims too, but enticed by some other less palatable sentiment they possess.
I don't disagree, but I also believe the tabloid media hold great power over that segment of the population; indeed, many of the "less palatable" sentiments have been encouraged by the tabloid media, or perhaps even originated with them.
As a Brit this (Brexit) pisses me off to no end. The fact that my ability to trivially work and live in Europe is now robbed from me because of the Brexit referendum based on lies to sway the masses to vote for it means dreams I have about essentially trying even country in Europe for work, play, and general life is a lot harder.
Yeah, no one likes a vote not turning out in their favour (in case it isn't obvious I voted to remain) but this feels a lot more life changing to me (a 27 year old) because I still have a lot of my life ahead of me.
In today's world, it is clear that the old voters are robbing the young of a lifestyle that the young want. The old live with a mental model that is far removed from what the young want.
Right now your post is heavily downvoted, but I see this trend in the US as well. A generation that benefited from good government generally decided "eh, things are going well, let's make everything harder for our children" and pulled up the ladder that they had just climbed.
If you want to make it an "old vs. young" argument, then the old have collectively contributed to their country far more than the young. So they definitely have a say in their country's policies.
The young from the UK can still apply for a visa, like the young from many other countries not in the EU. They also have a higher chance of getting one, probably.
I think the division was between the educated and non-educated (i.e. early school leavers). As the school leaving age has risen over the past few decades, that happened to track with age. In other words, Brexit voters were what you could diplomatically call "low information voters" (I'd call them "thick racist dipshits" but that's probably why I'm not a politician).
Another factor is that the core Brexit (and Conservative) voters are retired home-owners, who are less directly connected to the productive side of the economy. The media they consume keeps them in that fantasy bubble. Take the Daily Express for example, which has reality-defying headlines that would put the North Korean Ministry of Information to shame.
So other than some clues (rising prices that can be blamed on global conditions, longer queues at airports that can be blamed on staff shortages and so on) they probably believe Brexit is going just fine.
It doesn’t help that one of the most popular search queries after Brexit was “What’s Brexit?” suggesting a lot of people didn’t even know what they were voting for.
Yet you have no evidence to show any significant overlap in the Venn diagram of actual voters and people who searched that term, much less the reason they searched that term.
>Yet you have no evidence to show any significant overlap in the Venn diagram of actual voters and people who searched that term, much less the reason they searched that term.
The weeping and wailing began the night of the referendum. By the next morning we were confidently told by the press, Reddit, and Twitter that millions of Leave voters were already regretting their vote (and, as per TimPC's claim, were only now trying to find out what Brexit is), and that another referendum was thus the only fair/democratic/correct thing to do. (That even if such millions of Regretters actually existed that does not mean that a revote would occur is a minor technicality.) All part and parcel of the relentless effort since the referendum to invalidate its outcome by any means necessary.
Yes, the behaviour of the #FBPE types and of the EU after the referendum transformed me from a Remainer to a Brexit supporter. I voted to remain, but the contemptuous anti-democratic lunacy of my own side turned me against them.
Anger on Leavers' part against delay on Brexit did not become significant until 2019. The Supreme Court agreed that there was reasonable basis for the Miller case, and (more controversially) unexpectedly ruled for her in the second Miller case. But Leavers understandably came to see both lawsuits as part and parcel of the aforementioned unrelenting attempt on Remainers' part to stop Brexit by any and all means, whether legitimate or not. The fact that Miller actively campaigned for revoking Article 50 didn't help the Remain cause, and discredited her claim during the first case that she wanted to protect parliamentary sovereignty.
It's pretty clear in retrospect that what drove the Labour collapse in 2019 (In some Red Wall seats—seats that Labour had held with massive majorities for 50-100 years—the Tories didn't have to gain a single vote to win) is both Labour Leavers unhappy about their party not continuing its 2017 acceptance of Brexit coming, and Remainers who disliked the idea (whether explicit among Lib Dems, or implicit among much of Labour) of ignoring a democratic vote in 2016. That's why another referendum was so unpopular, because no one believed that it would not be rigged against Leave.[1]
Those who in other circumstances might have supported a "People's Vote" didn't, because they saw it as yet another attempt to delay and prevent Brexit via Neverendums. I think Leave would have won another referendum conducted under the circumstances of the first one, but Leavers understandably didn't trust the People's Vote folks to implement another referendum in any way that Leave can again win. Not after 3.5 years and counting of shenanigans such as the Miller case.
[1] Even supporters of same, no matter what they said. That's why they were for it.
That was investigated at the time, it appeared to be mostly children searching for what their parents were talking about.
The idea that only ignorant people could vote against the EU is a popular meme amongst Remainers but actual polls have shown consistently there's little difference in EU knowledge between the two camps and to the extent one side has an advantage, it's those who wanted to leave who knew more.
I'm not sure if I can motivate you with this but - I know it comes with a lot of disadvantages, but the EU is becoming more toxic each year, and also grows in scope with seemingly no end in sight.
Being a part of the EU was the wrong call for the UK, in my opinion.
Brexit implementation was painful like a bandaid, but in the long term you will benefit from this.
The price you'll need to pay is just worse economy for a decade or two, and more difficult travel/work etc, but you will have more freedom as an independent nation. That has real value.
Because without content, a comment is useless, empty propaganda. If you have a position, feel free to argue it by stating your principles, the facts, and how applying the principles to those facts lead you to the position. Otherwise you're noise at best, and a bad-faith actor looking less to persuade others to your view and more to simply damage others by wasting their time, at worst. And frankly, certain positions, like yours, for example, are closely associated with bad faith actors, so you might have to work even harder to assure readers.
Okay, then how about this: By being part of the EU, a country will be spending part of a massive and bureaucratic organization that has failed financial audits for 2 decades (a measurable argument) and basically gives you less and less control over your own actions as a nation.
If you happen to be less keen on immigration, then the EU is also a bad place as the enforcement is pretty weak.
I think those are pretty reasonable arguments that come down to one thing: autonomy for nation states.
Which are? I never see anything other than vague and vacuous emotional appeals in the positive column. By now people should be able to point at concrete positive outcomes.
Yes this is a major issue and topic in France. The second and third highest scoring political groups in France are pro-Russia and anti-Europe, so yes, they complain about that and want their Frexit.
In Eastern Europe is very different, people are really united and supportive of Europe because Europe brings defense, values and protection.
>> You have some advantages, currency control, customs/tariffs controls own decisions for sanitary rules, immigration control, less commitment to war (EU has treaty asking countries to help each other), less spendings, etc... but you still have diplomatic relations which allows you to travel.
>> Basically you became a sovereign country.
Congratulations on being wrong on almost every point. I'm hoping you're not lying on purpose.
>> currency control
The UK has its on currency, the GBP. It had it even during EU times...
>> customs/tariffs controls own decisions for sanitary rules, immigration control
The UK was not a part of Schengen and had border controls while being a EU member. EU member citizens have freedom of movement to other countries, but there are limitations. For example someone committing a crime could be deported and banned...
>> less commitment to war (EU has treaty asking countries to help each other)
This is sort of valid but the UK is more of a warhawk than the EU so in practice this point is moot.
>> less spendings
The UK was a net contributor but due to various EU social policies, the money that was returned from the EU was high impact: education, investment in poor regions, etc. At the end of the day, the rich can fend for themselves, the poor and underprivileged can't, and ironically the EU was mostly helping with that.
>> but you still have diplomatic relations which allows you to travel
They had that before, just an extra seat at many tables as part of the EU.
What makes it even worse is that Cameron made a verbal committment to ensuring that ex-patriates gone for more than 15 years would be able to vote in the Brexit referendum, and did not make good on that promise.
Look, I left the UK 33 years ago, and am a dual citizen of the UK & US. I would never think of voting or in any way participating in regular UK politics - I left, my choice, that's over with.
But Brexit was different. It directly affected my rights as a citizen, to travel and work and live freely within the EU, and Cameron's fuck up and lies took that away from me (and my daughter) without my ability to vote on it.
I can't say for sure, but there are supposedly about 5.5M expat Brits. How many of them are over the 15 year limit for voting I don't know but I would guess that there are enough that it could have made a difference to the vote. I would also guess that an overwhelming of those (excluding the idiots on the Costa del Sol) would have voted against Brexit.
Not that this excuses false promises, but: why should expatriates who left a country decades ago get any say in pivotal decisions on its future? That seems like a really dumb idea.
> But Brexit was different. It directly affected my rights as a citizen
You got some nice free perks at no cost to yourself and are now sore that the people who had had a less lopsided exposure (i.e. needed to shoulder costs for benefits you could enjoy without downside) decided, rightly or wrongly, the costs (non-existent to you) were not worth the benefits. I can see how that would be annoying to you personally, and I will not attempt to defend anything else about Brexit, but generally few decision making processes are improved by voluntarily involving more free-riders.
> why should expatriates who left a country decades ago get any say in pivotal decisions on its future? That seems like a really dumb idea
We don't. If you have not resided there for 15 years or longer, you have no vote. And I'm totally fine with that, it makes sense to me, for a variety of reasons, including that I pay no taxes in the UK, and that to a large degree nothing that happens in the UK affects me directly (it does affect my family, but they all get their own vote).
However, most democracies have a general policy of not taking away the rights and priviledges of citizenship without giving those affected a vote to at least nominally affect the decision. I remain a UK citizen and could return there to reside at any time. It is precisely because (a) this is a pivotal decision about the future and (b) it was a decision that would change the status of anyone with UK citizenship, whether or not they resided there, that I felt that someone like myself should have been able to vote. So for example, had Brexit actually been a vote on some sort of reconfiguration of the relationship with the EU that ended up with UK citizens still having the same individual relationship with the EU (unlikely, but you can half imagine it, I think), again, I don't think that people like me should have been able to vote. But when you're going to strip millions of people with the right to permanently reside in the UK of their relationship with the EU, it seems democratic and fair to me that you give them some say.
And Cameron apparently felt that way too, or at least voiced that opinion during his final election campaign, but then didn't follow through (not really a surprise).
You should lose voting rights 12 months after you leave, which is when tax and residency starts being considered as "not" - I've said this before Brexit too,if you leave you lose all rights (including things like unemployment and healthcare)
I say this as an expat and a vote leave individual (flame away).
That's a ridiculously short time. If someone takes a position in another part of the world (perhaps behind the wheel of a large automobile), for a year or two, they could trivially find themselves coming back to a government they were unable to vote for, which will govern their lives for up to 4-5 years.
I'm not advocating for the rights of expats to be expanded, and I'd probably support some of them being shrunk somewhat, as a general rule.
I just think that a once-in-several-generational essentially constitutional vote is different, and that the normal rules (which I support) should be modified for such a thing.
There is a difference between being out of the country and making a choice to not be part of it, obviously it requires some degree of flexibility but you shouldn't be able to abandon the country and then expect benefits or any say in how it's run, same applies to any country.
The easy other point is people who haven't even stepped foot in the country in decades are dictating to people who still live there and drawing money away despite contributing very little when they did live there and absolutely nothing for the past 20 years in their hovel in Spain or whatever the current sufferer of British expats is.
The UK already had exceptional status on various rules - they were more a half-member than a full member. So clearly, the EU already cared enough to make exceptions. The Brexit vote was different: the UK government chose[1] to interpret its results as a requirement to leave the EU. That's not something an outsider can upend without interfering in the day-to-day governance of the state. And no member state wants the EU to interfere with its sovereignty on that level. So the only possible outcome was acceptance.
On the other hand, had Cameron gone to the EU with a 90% "less EU" mandate in hand, the EU would either have to accede or kick the UK out. Kicking out a member state... pfffft. I would guess it can be vetoed by any member state - or at least any other (not being kicked out) member state. And some would - their EU track record is such that they could be next.
Basically, the EU had no choice whilst respecting sovereignty of Member States. A less/more vote would have put the onus of kicking out a member on the EU, something I don't see the member states reaching a unanimous decision on. Which would leave negotiation.
The referendum was set up that way specifically because Cameron felt he couldn't lose such an "extreme" choice, and then when people voted for less EU - as they always do in every country - the question would be sufficiently vague that it could have been ignored. As it always is. The binary choice was really quite a stroke of luck because it made it impossible for the government to pretend the decision had been implemented when it hadn't been, despite obviously being desperate to do so.
As for the EU being "forced" to accommodate, that tactic was also tried. That was Cameron's pre-referendum negotiations. It was a total failure, he was rebuffed on everything and hardly talked about his supposedly great deal after he returned because it was clear to all that the EU had compromised on nothing. Both during the process and after it, the EU's position was always the same and boiled down to "we don't care what voters think, you obey entirely or quit and accept that we'll blank you from then on".
> The binary choice was really quite a stroke of luck because it made it impossible for the government to pretend the decision had been implemented when it hadn't been, despite obviously being desperate to do so.
I believe there was a referendum in Wales on more independence, with a stronger result (60+% in favor), which was basically ignored. (That is: much handwringing and discussion whether the mandate was clear enough). There was a link with Theresa May - she may have been in Welsh parliament.
A reason in favour of expats voting is that they should have a say on things that affect their citizenship.
You can definitely argue how far that argument holds sway - after all, any government could change its citizenship rules for expats.
But Brexit clearly was a different case than regular elections. The government was embarking upon a sea change for expats - changing the rules of the game while playing.
I am not familiar with the politics of Brexit but surely no one voted because they wanted to lose their right to live and work in Europe? I suppose there was something else that was considered less appealing about being part of the EU?
Assuming good faith on the part of Leave voters, there was a sustained political and media campaign of straightforward lies (“the economy will improve”, “immigration will be reduced” etc) which convinced a lot of people.
That wasn't the real wish at all. They wished to remove the right of certain kinds of Europeans to live and and work in the UK. That nice white very caucasian French well-educated doctor and their spouse? Not a problem.
The racial politics of the USA w.r.t Europeans are largely derived from intra-European racial politics, and so the former reflects the latter.
Younger generations are thankfully easing up on this stuff, but eastern Europeans were not seen as "real Europeans" by western Europeans for a very long time. The same was true, though to a lesser extent of southern Europeans in the eyes of northern Europeans, something that stopped being so true a bit earlier.
National chauvinism is a strange beast: there is often (perceived) virtue in taking negative consequences in stride, even when those consequences outstrip the claimed goals. It’s possible that the majority of Brexit voters don’t want to lose the rights associated with being EU citizens, but may take pride in shouldering that as a consequence.
Voting to remain meant voting for the status-quo, something many people weren’t happy with for perfectly legitimate reasons.
Voting to leave meant, well it meant all things to all people. The leave campaign focused on the boundless opportunities offered by leaving the EU and becoming a “more sovereign” nation, while ignoring the practical realities of life without the EU. So while Brexit certainly bring opportunities not available with the EU, it’s not clear the UK is in a position to capitalise on those opportunities, and loosing access to your largest trading partner certainly doesn’t make thing easier.
EU come with baggage, that’s undeniable, but it also brings tremendous benefits, which the UK had become used to, and no longer recognised as EU benefits. And when you offer people the opportunity to get rid of the baggage, and they don’t the benefits that they’re also getting rid off, it’s easy to see why people voted leave.
Substantial portions of the UK have seen stagnation for going on decades now. Every I visit my parents, who don’t live in London, I’m reminded of how many parts of the UK have become totally frozen in time, slowly decaying.
That stagnation has slowly eroded away peoples hope of a better future. Things aren’t getting better, they’re either staying the same or sliding backwards.
None of this of course has anything to do with the EU, if anything the EU development funding was they only thing preventing an even worse backslide. But the UK government deliberately refused to advertise when EU money was used to develop areas (something the EU has now banned), and has for decades used the EU as a scapegoat for the failure of national government. Do that for enough years, and it’s shouldn’t be much surprise that people started believing the rhetoric.
Additionally free movement of people brought it own issues, almost all of the self inflicted. A number of areas in the UK suffered greatly due to the abusive, and almost certainly illegal, practice of farmers hiring cheap imported labour that was underpaid, and abandoned outside of harvest season. The result of populations of starving abandoned Eastern Europeans forced into criminality in order to survive winter. Another catastrophic failure of national government, but when you’re being mugged by someone who doesn’t speak English, I doubt your going to take the time to understand why your mugger is mugging you.
The great irony of all this, is that the EU in its own way saw these issues, and gave members ways of limiting migration from newly joined member states, while those states completed their integration process and could create their own local opportunities with the help of the EU. The UK in its infinite wisdom decided to forgo all those controls and allow complete freedom of movement from day 0, and then blame the EU for the somewhat predictable results.
I don’t blame the EU for any of the above problems. They’re almost entirely the result of national government refusing to properly engage with the EU. But the problems had real impact on peoples lives, and the inability of UK government to acknowledge or tackle them meant there was no reason to believe they would get better while we remained in the EU. So I can see why leaving becomes an clear and obvious solution.
Quite frankly I think the greatest Brexit benefit is the removal of the fig leaf the EU provided for national failures of government. The UK government’s incompetence is on full display, and if we’re lucky, we finally get some competent politicians again.
Actually, the main voting motivation was exactly that, just framed as removing the rights of Europeans to live and work in the UK. Maybe some people didn't know it cuts both ways but that was the prime promise of the Brexiteers.
I recall reading that it appealed to Brits with immigrant backgrounds because they felt like Europeans are having it too easy or something like that.
The other argument was about having a point system instead of letting anyone in, so the European engineers and Indian engineers for example would have the same rights and this will yield in more meritocratic system.
Somehow the companies are not good enough in picking the employees with the correct skillset, for example a British company is hiring unskilled Hungarians as engineers so to fix this the British companies first need to get a permission from the government which will evaluate the person, pay fees and wait a few month for processing to do the right kind of hires.
Funniest part were Brits living in Spain, going to UK to vote in favor of Brexit and then being surprised when later Spain was sending them back to UK.
It sucks, I'm sorry. "Lying to the masses" is a terrifying problem, and one that deserves study. It's like school shootings in America - it horrific when it happens, and we know it's going to happen again. What can you do the next time the masses get lied to? It shames me to say I don't know, either, and I'm not even sure where to start.
The masses were indeed lied to a lot during the referendum campaign, but it was primarily by the Remain side:
- Osborne: We will impose massive emergency taxes if you are naughty enough to vote leave (a lie).
- Cameron: I will definitely not resign as PM if I lose the vote (a lie which made the previous lie more believable, he resigned immediately)
- Cameron: I will trigger Article 50 immediately (a lie).
- HM Treasury: Voting leave will cause an immediate recession that will destroy 500,000-800,000 jobs according to expert modelling (wrong, baseless)
- Clegg: the EU army Brexit supporters talk about is a fantasy (a lie, the first post-brexit EU meeting was dominated by the sudden urgency of setting up an EU army)
- Obama in 2016: UK at the "back of the queue" for a US trade deal if voting for Brexit. A lie, turned out Cameron had asked him to say this, by 2018 US Treasury Secretary was saying "UK at front of the queue" for trade deal when ready.
- A vote to leave would cause Scotland to leave the union (didn't happen).
- John Major, Paddy Ashdown, Nick Clegg: The referendum vote is final and a once in a lifetime decision (a lie, all these politicians agitated for a second referendum)
- Cameron: my negotiations secured a "special status" for the UK in EU (a lie sent to every household in the UK via mailshot: everything Cameron got agreement on was either not new or not legally binding).
- Osborne: families will be exactly £4300 a week worse off if leaving the EU (an attempt to divide modelled reduction in GDP growth by population which is nonsensical, even the BBC rejected this one).
HN is flooded with self proclaimed "EU citizen" types so this perspective is rarely presented here, but the reality is that especially once they realized they might lose, a staggering number of influential media and political elites started lying their pants off to try and ensure they'd win. This probably backfired in the end, as their lies were often quite transparent and led people to wonder what they were all so afraid of.
I spent a couple of years in Spain more than a decade ago and recognise I was fortunate to do that at the time. Today, post-brexit, it would be significantly harder.
The consequences of the vote were clear 6 years back. The problem is since then, there have been endless attempts to deliver a different outcome. To muddy the waters and suggest that actually what people really wanted was prize A, B, or C.
We left the EU and articles like this shouldn’t surprise anyone.
What annoys me even more is that it's just accepted by the mass media.
Many of the current ills in the UK are directly or indirectly caused by Brexit, from labour shortages to increased haulage costs leading to a trade deficit and rising food prices. The whole thing has just been an obvious disaster.
Specifically, the Office of Budget Responsibility [1] "estimates that our GDP will be 4 per cent lower than it otherwise would be because of Brexit (even without any further deterioration in the UK/EU relationship) and Brexit disruption to supply chains has already contributed to 6 per cent higher food prices". Using the most recent figure for national GDP from the Office for National Statistics [2] of £616.870 b, that's a cost of ~£2.5 bn. Nothing in comparison to the £4bn that the Tories have spent on broken PPE that they propose to burn to generate power [3] but still, a hell of a lot.
I will probably vote labour at the next election. It angers me deeply that they aren't campaigning about rejoining the EU – but were I to vote for the lib dems, who are, I fear a Tory would get in. I feel deeply that now, EVERYTHING IS WORSE FOR NO PURPOSE. Why! It's an absolute head-meet-desk (or foot-meet-gun) moment and it just seems to have been...accepted. The Union is breaking apart, we are stuck with an incompetent government by even its own piss-poor standards, with no democratic recourse and no option for undoing the damage done. Urgh. No wonder I've essentially decided to emigrate (to Europe).
Encouraged by the mass media. Brexit is one of the biggest ever newspaper campaigning successes. They simply had to lie about everything.
> EVERYTHING IS WORSE FOR NO PURPOSE.
Yes, and it's enraging; we're dealing with a delusional political class who care about nothing but themselves, and the press support them because otherwise the oligarchs who own the papers might face more tax or scrutiny.
To summarize: EU citizens can vote in local elections in France. After Brexit, a Brit who lives in France was denied voting right due to purported (now confirmed) lost EU citizenship.
Meaning British citizens are officially not EU citizens anymore. (barring dual citizens)
Um... how is this news? We left the EU in January 2020. I'm not sure what it would mean for Britain to leave the EU without Brits losing EU citizenship, and I've never heard anyone suggest that this might be the case.
It's nearly six years since the referendum - who exactly is surprised by this "development"?
I have noticed an unhealthy obsession and inability to move on. I speak from someone who would have voted to remain.
Yes it wasn't perhaps my choice, but trying to relive the result repeatedly with the same vitriol anger isn't healthy. Even more so defining your identity around it e.g. FBPE (Follow back, Pro EU) on Twitter. It also doesn't help the rejoin cause to spew such negativity and hatred at the other 50% of the population.
I think this quite accurate. I too voted remain. The clever thing the EU did was hide it's deeds from wider observation.
Subsequent to light being shed, i find it to be about the most sinister and vile organisation it is possible to imagine.
Even then, ignoring my personal feelings, it is obvious these people over invested themselves with a fairly inconsequential team and are over compensating for it.
Look at the news on veto removal today. Only a hardcore shill would defend this organisation.
Brexit is a tragedy that happened as a play of few people's political career. Now British people need to go through the EU bureaucracy to have a life in EU and the EU citizens need to go through UK bureaucracy to have a life in UK. For what?
Interesting fact: fear of immigration has evaporated after Brexit, despite that immigration to UK has increased. Maybe the Brexiters finally sleep well knowing that "they have control over their borders" or maybe the the media campaign of fear mongering died off.[0]
I'm very sorry that UK citizens lost their EU citizenship, British are part of Europe and have a huge positive impact. I'm sorry that you will need to pay fees, fill forms, get employment rejections due to non-meritocratic reasons like paperwork and visa.
Putting the government as the first line in the human resources is just beyond me. Feels like we are treated like cattle and persons need to prove worthiness to work and stay with us to the bureaucrats. It's not even the rules of immigration, which might make sense in certain situation but the act of working through the process itself is dehumanising. It's not enough to find a job that pays above certain amount or considered in demand, you need to spend money and time to expose yourself to someone who doesn't know you and has no business in your dealings and hope that they find you worthy.
The thing that is so frustrating is that the so called "European Question" is far from resolved in the UK. Brexit may be done in the EU, but it's going to be something of an original sin in UK politics for decades to come. The current Brexit deal would never have been voted for by the UK population had it been presented during the referendum. I see an alternate past where the UK had effectively become Switzerland or Norway, and potentially a future where it still does (once the current regime is out of the way and wounds are allowed to heal). Brexit would have just been an interesting bit of historical trivia had that come to pass.
I'll never give up on the European Project personally, and it makes me deeply sad to cross the border and not have the Union Citizenship I always cherished. If it had been an option due to my ancestry, I would have gotten an alternative EU passport (as many if not most of my friends have). Brexit has made it infinitely more difficult to bring my fiancee into the country (in a bygone era we would have just Surinder Singh-ed as it's next to impossible for self-employed people to reunite with family in the UK), and has deeply degraded democracy in the UK (see proroguing parliament).
I feel for the Remainers, especially those living or working internationally. The result of this lawsuit isn't very surprising at all (turns out leaving the EU means you don't get EU benefits anymore and your country's limitations on voting aren't another country's fault) but sadly what's done is done. The UK didn't want freedom of movement/settlement with the EU and it was clear from the start that the EU wasn't going to grant rights to UK citizens the UK wasn't going to grant to the EU.
The only recourse here would be for UK citizens to apply for European citizenship in a member state of their choice, but that's a long, complicated process, not dissimilar to the process of becoming a recognised UK citizen. It's also incredibly difficult if you're not highly-skilled, already living abroad and/or have access to exchange programs that offer a way in, such as access to education.
For the person in question, this should be easy: France requires that you've lived there for five years, have knowledge of France and speak French, something I'd expect should be quite doable if you've lived there for fifteen years. The UK allows for double citizenship, so I think there's an easy way out for people in such situations without giving up any rights in the home country, much easier than for most people who come to France from outside the EU.
I do hope the tensions around the northern Irish border situation won't impede UK citizens even more in the years to come. The way the UK seems to be coming back on their promises paints a grim image for things to come.
What are you suggesting here? That the UK wants to unwind the Common Travel Agreement? The NI situation is very loaded, it doesn't helpful such a fragile situation with a "UK is bad" narrative. Ultimately, the goal is to try and preserve peace.
I don't think the UK is bad necessarily, but its current leadership has shown signs that they are quite unhappy with the current restrictions. As far as I could follow, they haven't been very happy with the current system from the start.
Headlines today say that the UK government will come out with a proposal next week that would violate the current border agreements. The current customs situation is an enormous hassle for the Northern Irish people, basically forming a customs border within the Kingdom, and the UK government want to cut through the red tape. That's not necessarily bad, it makes complete sense, but it's made difficult by the fact the easy solution (just putting a border between the two Irelands) isn't feasible.
If the UK decides to unilaterally alter the deal, Ireland may be required to enforce their customs policy along the border, which is feared to spark more violence in the area. After all, Ireland is either in the customs union or it's not, it can't become a free corridor for UK goods to enter the EU.
Sinn Féin and the DUP being at odds with each other after the latter lost the election certainly isn't helping. This whole situation is a mess and that's why I think the UK government altering their deal will only cause problems.
I hope that cooler heads prevail here. The rumoured proposal is still just that, a proposal. If it gets shot down, or if it gets held back until the situation has cooled down a bit, this might just turn into yet another round of EU negotiations.
> The current customs situation is an enormous hassle for the Northern Irish people
A majority of people in NI recently voted for parties that support the NIP, and NI and London are the only regions in the UK that are currently experiencing growth. I think it might be more opportunity than hassle.
It's stunning to watch videos of Britons confused about why they've lost certain privileges, only a short while after voting to leave the place that gave them those privileges. It's like canceling your gym membership because it's too expensive, then wanting to fight the manager because they won't let you work out there anymore. I have so much sympathy for those that knew what Brexit meant, tried to fight it, and lost the vote.
I've been mentally comparing this to the 2016 US election where an (electoral) majority got Trump elected as President. But we still have large swathes of the US population that were VERY happy with all 4 years of his presidency. I'm curious how many Britons in 2016 were similarly as vocal for their support of the referendum, and are still just as happy today with the results.
I think even among Brexiteers an awareness is starting to dawn that no alleged benefits have been delivered. And the fight over Northern Ireland is still ongoing.
> It's stunning to watch videos of Britons confused about why they've lost certain privileges, only a short while after voting to leave
Have you consided that some of the people who are confused about this DID NOT VOTE TO LEAVE? That they are confused because nobody explained, or could explain, at the time of the Brexit, that these wouldbe the consequences? The Leave campaign was (at best) disingenous about the consequences; the Remain campaign could not predict all the consequences because that would require an actual deal to analyze.
You can still work or live in the EU, nothings stopping you. You can go through the process to become a citizen of an EU country just like anyone else. That's the new reality. We're not going to rejoin because no one will vote to have Schengen imposed on them, or to have a single currency or to make transfers of billions of pounds to the Commission. You can either live with it or move to the EU. But sulking about it isn't the most constructive option.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 192 ms ] thread- omg! so unfair
There are many stupid things regarding Brexit (primarily, that it took place at all) but this was a worthwhile thing to try to resolve even if it was a bit of a long shot.
I don't really think that should be relevant to France's laws. Britain could after all change their laws.
But I do think this woman should be able to vote in these local elections as a legal resident. That should be the case regardless of citizenship. But it seems that would require changes to French law.
Of course that's a bit beside the point in the case though. I guess that option is only open to EU citizens. I find that odd, but I guess that's the law.
I, as a US citizen living in Ireland can vote in local council elections.
Realistic countries need to process citizenship for former EU citizens who have been living in their country for long enough to achieve citizenship.
It'll take them more effort, but after living in France for long enough to lose UK voting rights I should hope that the rest of the citizenship requirements should be easy.
This assumes the filer wants French citizenship, obviously: if they want to stick with permanent residence but still want to vote then there's no solution, you can't have it both ways.
In the UK any resident can vote in municipal elections - there is no citizenship requirement.
As Slovakia is a member state of the EU, this will not itself directly affect you.
I am not a lawyer, nor do I know more details, but I would guess it should not change anything for you, as your slovakian citizenship should suffice.
[edit] first version was missing a crucial „Not“
The only thing that changed is that UK nationals no longer have the status of "citizen" in the EU (unless they have dual citizenship, of course). What that means exactly differs per country.
IANAL but I don't think this changes much in practice, or was ever an unexpected outcome, really.
Long story short, EU citizens have certain rights in some member states. When the UK left, UK citizens are no longer entitled to any rights given to "EU citizens" in their country of residence.
The question that arose after Brexit was, whether British citizens would possibly retain this citizenship, which could have meant that they would retain the rights that come with it as well. There are different arguments why British citizens might have kept this EU citizenship, for example it might be argued that the withdrawal of a _state_ from the Union can not mean that _individuals_ loose their rights or it could be argued that such a loss of rights would be disproportionate.
The CJEU has now interpreted the treaties in such a way that the withdrawal does indeed mean that individuals loose their EU citizenship, arguing that "the authors of the Treaties thus established an inseparable and exclusive link between possession of the nationality of a Member State and not only the acquisition, but also the retention, of the status of citizen of the Union".
So this ruling might have had a big effect if the CJEU decided in a different way. The way they decided now, everything stays the same. If you are in possession of another EU member states citizenship (Slovakia) this will not change anything for you, you will remain an EU citizen.
[1] Technically many of those rights were already in the treaties before the introduction of the EU citizenship, so it is a bit "declaratory" in nature.
Edit: Bit surprised at some of these responses. You absolutely can use the word “European” to mean “a participant in the political project that is Europe”. This has nothing to do with ethnicity.
The EU itself phrases freedom of movement as a "right"[0].
Arguably, every human should have the right to move to any country they want to, and in an ideal world every human would have that right.
That is obviously not the case now, but the rolling back of the partial progress that had been made, and the consequent creation of a boundary between the UK and the remainder of the EU that hadn't existed previously, is rightly condemned.
[0] https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/pages/glossary/right-free-...
Freedom of movement is a human right. The right to be European is not a human right. The overuse and dilution of the term "right" to mean "anything I want to, or am allowed, to do" is a serious pet peeve of mine...
Not anymore
> In the same way that working in UK as a foreigner is extremely easy.
Not anymore either
Ergo, the UK government is definitely to blame. While others may also take the blame in hypotheticals that never happened, if the UK had not done what it chose to do, then this wouldn't be the state we are in now.
Yes, there's a problem that residents of the United States of America (just one country within North America/the Americas) adopted the term "American" to describe (mostly) only themselves. But there are plenty of sporting and diplomatic events that make clear that "American" has broader meaning than "the USA".
The situation in the UK is different from the situation with, say, residents of the USA and Mexico. The latter are separated by an arbitrary and mobile political boundary that in many place can be walked across rather easily (even where the boundary is the Rio Grande). The UK is an island and this has created both a physical boundary with the rest of the continent and (largely because of that) a centuries old sense of isolation.
The years that the UK was a part of (initially the EEC and then later) the EU saw a diminishment of that sense of isolation and a growing awareness of the cultural and historical linkage between the people living in the UK and those in the rest of Europe. Cheap and fast travel also contributed to that.
Yes, "problem"
>that residents of the United States of America (just one country within North America/the Americas) adopted the term "American" to describe (mostly) only themselves.
The use of America to, in English, refer specifically to the English-speaking residents of North America long precedes 1776.
Further, the English language's use of "America/Americans" to refer specifically to the United States and its people as opposed to Chileans or Mexicans is consistent in every major European language except Spanish.
>But there are plenty of sporting and diplomatic events that make clear that "American" has broader meaning than "the USA".
Yes, the Organization of American States (headquartered in Washington DC) = "plenty of sporting and diplomatic events".
I will pose the same question that Veen did elsewhere, regarding the hysterical claim that after Brexit, Britons are no longer European. Are Swiss and Norwegians European? Why, or why not?
Pan American Games / Copa América / Summit of the Americas / Pan American Treaty / I could go on.
> I will pose the same question that Veen did elsewhere, regarding the hysterical claim that after Brexit, Britons are no longer European.
"Being European" is a relatively new idea that emerged in the aftermath of two world (but euro-centric) wars. It didn't really have a geographic locus per se, but referred to a certain kind of committment to a certain idea of "Europe". The UK did not consider itself part of that idea for several decades after the end of WWII, and arguably a majority of the population never really did (even if they supported the idea "for those people over there").
I have a couple of friends who are long time residents in the USA, but were born in countries within the EU. They don't know each other, but when asked how they think about their status they both reply "I'm a European who lives in the USA". I have a hard time imagining anyone from the UK in the same situation ever saying this.
Oh, come now. You yourself acknowledged that "the Americas" refers to North and South America. I don't need to explain why "Pan American" isn't the same thing as "American". And as I said before, the English use of "America/American" to specifically refer to the USA and its people is shared by all European languages other than Spanish.
>"Being European" is a relatively new idea that emerged in the aftermath of two world (but euro-centric) wars. It didn't really have a geographic locus per se, but referred to a certain kind of committment to a certain idea of "Europe". The UK did not consider itself part of that idea for several decades after the end of WWII, and arguably a majority of the population never really did (even if they supported the idea "for those people over there").
I don't disagree at all about the historical distinguishing between the UK and "Europe". (Insert "FOG COVERS CHANNEL / EUROPE CUT OFF" anecdote here.) But that is orthogonal to whether Brexit made the UK suddenly not "European" (at least, any more than before), as the other poster's wailing claimed.
You also didn't answer my/Venn's question. Are the Swiss and Norwegians European, and why/why not?
Now, it's entirely possible that, should the EU survive, perhaps a century from now, "Europe/European" will refer specifically to the EU and its residents. But we're not there yet and not even the most fanatic pro-EU Remainer in the UK would claim this. (The relevance of this question to the aforementioned discussion of "America/American"'s meaning is left as an exercise for the reader.)
Are they are a part of the post-WWII effort to forge a European identity i.e. being European. Seems to me that this likely varies generationally and also individually. I suspect there are numerous Swiss and Norwegian people that are meet this criterion of "being European", but it may not be the majority. Of course, the same could be said for the populations of the member states of the EU too.
It is definitely true of the UK, where there are lots of people who really do think of themselves, even with Brexit essentially complete, as Europeans, and lots of other people who absolutely reject that identity. For those who do think of themselves as European, Brexit has made it much, much harder for them to live as if that had real consequences.
2) The EU is not Europe. Leaving the EU did not stop British citizens from being European.
I'm starting to understand how Americans get annoyed when people keep going "but the USA is not America"
2) Do you also insist on calling Venezuelans "American"? Because that's also technically accurate, in a way most people consider hair-splitting.
I find the distinction worth making because I refuse to let pro-EU people co-opt the European identity for their own purposes. I am British and European. Whether Britain is in the EU is irrelevant.
Of course they won't reapply any time soon, but that's nothing to do with Ukraine, Macedonia, Turkey, Bosnia, Serbia and all the other countries who are at various staged of the application process.
Not that it really matters, I think it would be unwise to readmit the UK unless EU membership becomes overwhelmingly popular, and I don't think that's going to take less than 15 years.
If I try to be optimistic, perhaps cheap holidays in the sun will keep another generation feeling as connected to Europe as those in the 17-40 range currently seem to be. But I'm not an optimist by nature.
Welcome to the not-so-united Kingdom of England and Wales. The Queen will die along with her Kingdom as a symbolic cherry on the cake.
In Sweden "Settled" people can only vote for local governments, not for the Riksdag (Parliament).. that privilege is for citizens only, for example.
But, it's hardly "weird" that British people do not have EU citizenship automatically anymore, EU citizenship is granted on top of your normal citizenship if your country is a member of the EU, which the UK no longer is.
The same mechanism that turned Brits to EU citizens in the 70s is the same process by which those rights are no longer applicable to British citizens today, what did people think they were voting for?
Surely this is Hardly "news", or maybe I'm too optimistic about how much people understand about the politics of the world around them.
I would expect expats to know more than the usual uninformed (or misinformed) British citizen living domestically.
Brexiters did, indeed, in general, think they were voting to strip the rest of us of our rights, and they succeeded in doing so - they thought that this was worth "protecting us from Brussels" or preventing immigration or that it would mean £350 million a week to the NHS or whatever else.
This court case (and a handful of similar ones) was a last-ditch attempt of people stripped of their rights to keep them.
In the UK the rules are the same as Sweden where any resident can vote. But it seems many countries have citizenship requirements even for the municipal elections.
I’m not sure that’s trivially obvious. The process of joining the EU is complex and extremely well documented and understood.
The process of leaving is a couple paragraphs with zero specifics.
Ultimately the question boiled down to, having been granted EU citizenship, on what basis was that citizenship revoked? If EU citizenship is just an extension of your national citizenship to an EU member, then reason for loss is clear.
But if your EU citizenship is distinct and additional to your national citizenship, then what basis was it revoked, and what gave the revoking entity the right to strip a person of their EU citizenship?
Clearly the courts strong believe that EU citizenship is directly tied to your citizenship of an EU member. But until the ruling was made, that answer wasn’t absolutely clear, and why shouldn't UK citizens make a Hail Mary attempt at preserving their EU citizenship? The down side of bringing the case and loosing is a lose of time and money, but winning would fundamentally change many peoples relationship with the EU.
Therein lies the crux of the problem - nobody knew exactly what a vote for Brexit would mean, beyond somehow leaving the EU and "sending Johnny Foreigner back".
Many politicians and the tabloid media spread many dubious claims, and plenty outright lies, about the purported benefits of Brexit. For example, fisherman were made to believe French and Spanish boats would no longer fish in their waters - which never came true. This particular one example is a good one, because it demonstrates well that this group, who rely on cheap foreign labour, didn't know what they were voting for.
Yeah, no one likes a vote not turning out in their favour (in case it isn't obvious I voted to remain) but this feels a lot more life changing to me (a 27 year old) because I still have a lot of my life ahead of me.
The young from the UK can still apply for a visa, like the young from many other countries not in the EU. They also have a higher chance of getting one, probably.
Another factor is that the core Brexit (and Conservative) voters are retired home-owners, who are less directly connected to the productive side of the economy. The media they consume keeps them in that fantasy bubble. Take the Daily Express for example, which has reality-defying headlines that would put the North Korean Ministry of Information to shame.
So other than some clues (rising prices that can be blamed on global conditions, longer queues at airports that can be blamed on staff shortages and so on) they probably believe Brexit is going just fine.
The weeping and wailing began the night of the referendum. By the next morning we were confidently told by the press, Reddit, and Twitter that millions of Leave voters were already regretting their vote (and, as per TimPC's claim, were only now trying to find out what Brexit is), and that another referendum was thus the only fair/democratic/correct thing to do. (That even if such millions of Regretters actually existed that does not mean that a revote would occur is a minor technicality.) All part and parcel of the relentless effort since the referendum to invalidate its outcome by any means necessary.
It's pretty clear in retrospect that what drove the Labour collapse in 2019 (In some Red Wall seats—seats that Labour had held with massive majorities for 50-100 years—the Tories didn't have to gain a single vote to win) is both Labour Leavers unhappy about their party not continuing its 2017 acceptance of Brexit coming, and Remainers who disliked the idea (whether explicit among Lib Dems, or implicit among much of Labour) of ignoring a democratic vote in 2016. That's why another referendum was so unpopular, because no one believed that it would not be rigged against Leave.[1]
Those who in other circumstances might have supported a "People's Vote" didn't, because they saw it as yet another attempt to delay and prevent Brexit via Neverendums. I think Leave would have won another referendum conducted under the circumstances of the first one, but Leavers understandably didn't trust the People's Vote folks to implement another referendum in any way that Leave can again win. Not after 3.5 years and counting of shenanigans such as the Miller case.
[1] Even supporters of same, no matter what they said. That's why they were for it.
The idea that only ignorant people could vote against the EU is a popular meme amongst Remainers but actual polls have shown consistently there's little difference in EU knowledge between the two camps and to the extent one side has an advantage, it's those who wanted to leave who knew more.
Being a part of the EU was the wrong call for the UK, in my opinion.
Brexit implementation was painful like a bandaid, but in the long term you will benefit from this.
The price you'll need to pay is just worse economy for a decade or two, and more difficult travel/work etc, but you will have more freedom as an independent nation. That has real value.
Because without content, a comment is useless, empty propaganda. If you have a position, feel free to argue it by stating your principles, the facts, and how applying the principles to those facts lead you to the position. Otherwise you're noise at best, and a bad-faith actor looking less to persuade others to your view and more to simply damage others by wasting their time, at worst. And frankly, certain positions, like yours, for example, are closely associated with bad faith actors, so you might have to work even harder to assure readers.
If you happen to be less keen on immigration, then the EU is also a bad place as the enforcement is pretty weak.
I think those are pretty reasonable arguments that come down to one thing: autonomy for nation states.
Which are? I never see anything other than vague and vacuous emotional appeals in the positive column. By now people should be able to point at concrete positive outcomes.
I'm being ironic, I agree with your rhetorical question.
>> Basically you became a sovereign country.
Congratulations on being wrong on almost every point. I'm hoping you're not lying on purpose.
>> currency control
The UK has its on currency, the GBP. It had it even during EU times...
>> customs/tariffs controls own decisions for sanitary rules, immigration control
The UK was not a part of Schengen and had border controls while being a EU member. EU member citizens have freedom of movement to other countries, but there are limitations. For example someone committing a crime could be deported and banned...
>> less commitment to war (EU has treaty asking countries to help each other)
This is sort of valid but the UK is more of a warhawk than the EU so in practice this point is moot.
>> less spendings
The UK was a net contributor but due to various EU social policies, the money that was returned from the EU was high impact: education, investment in poor regions, etc. At the end of the day, the rich can fend for themselves, the poor and underprivileged can't, and ironically the EU was mostly helping with that.
>> but you still have diplomatic relations which allows you to travel
They had that before, just an extra seat at many tables as part of the EU.
Look, I left the UK 33 years ago, and am a dual citizen of the UK & US. I would never think of voting or in any way participating in regular UK politics - I left, my choice, that's over with.
But Brexit was different. It directly affected my rights as a citizen, to travel and work and live freely within the EU, and Cameron's fuck up and lies took that away from me (and my daughter) without my ability to vote on it.
I can't say for sure, but there are supposedly about 5.5M expat Brits. How many of them are over the 15 year limit for voting I don't know but I would guess that there are enough that it could have made a difference to the vote. I would also guess that an overwhelming of those (excluding the idiots on the Costa del Sol) would have voted against Brexit.
> But Brexit was different. It directly affected my rights as a citizen
You got some nice free perks at no cost to yourself and are now sore that the people who had had a less lopsided exposure (i.e. needed to shoulder costs for benefits you could enjoy without downside) decided, rightly or wrongly, the costs (non-existent to you) were not worth the benefits. I can see how that would be annoying to you personally, and I will not attempt to defend anything else about Brexit, but generally few decision making processes are improved by voluntarily involving more free-riders.
We don't. If you have not resided there for 15 years or longer, you have no vote. And I'm totally fine with that, it makes sense to me, for a variety of reasons, including that I pay no taxes in the UK, and that to a large degree nothing that happens in the UK affects me directly (it does affect my family, but they all get their own vote).
However, most democracies have a general policy of not taking away the rights and priviledges of citizenship without giving those affected a vote to at least nominally affect the decision. I remain a UK citizen and could return there to reside at any time. It is precisely because (a) this is a pivotal decision about the future and (b) it was a decision that would change the status of anyone with UK citizenship, whether or not they resided there, that I felt that someone like myself should have been able to vote. So for example, had Brexit actually been a vote on some sort of reconfiguration of the relationship with the EU that ended up with UK citizens still having the same individual relationship with the EU (unlikely, but you can half imagine it, I think), again, I don't think that people like me should have been able to vote. But when you're going to strip millions of people with the right to permanently reside in the UK of their relationship with the EU, it seems democratic and fair to me that you give them some say.
And Cameron apparently felt that way too, or at least voiced that opinion during his final election campaign, but then didn't follow through (not really a surprise).
I say this as an expat and a vote leave individual (flame away).
I'm not advocating for the rights of expats to be expanded, and I'd probably support some of them being shrunk somewhat, as a general rule.
I just think that a once-in-several-generational essentially constitutional vote is different, and that the normal rules (which I support) should be modified for such a thing.
The easy other point is people who haven't even stepped foot in the country in decades are dictating to people who still live there and drawing money away despite contributing very little when they did live there and absolutely nothing for the past 20 years in their hovel in Spain or whatever the current sufferer of British expats is.
Hindsight is 20/20; but this was Cameron's major oversight. The referendum should've been "more or less EU", not "yes or no EU".
He would've gotten a very strong mandate for less and the EU would've been forced to accommodate. (They wouldn't want to risk losing the UK.)
Alas.
On the other hand, had Cameron gone to the EU with a 90% "less EU" mandate in hand, the EU would either have to accede or kick the UK out. Kicking out a member state... pfffft. I would guess it can be vetoed by any member state - or at least any other (not being kicked out) member state. And some would - their EU track record is such that they could be next.
Basically, the EU had no choice whilst respecting sovereignty of Member States. A less/more vote would have put the onus of kicking out a member on the EU, something I don't see the member states reaching a unanimous decision on. Which would leave negotiation.
As for the EU being "forced" to accommodate, that tactic was also tried. That was Cameron's pre-referendum negotiations. It was a total failure, he was rebuffed on everything and hardly talked about his supposedly great deal after he returned because it was clear to all that the EU had compromised on nothing. Both during the process and after it, the EU's position was always the same and boiled down to "we don't care what voters think, you obey entirely or quit and accept that we'll blank you from then on".
I believe there was a referendum in Wales on more independence, with a stronger result (60+% in favor), which was basically ignored. (That is: much handwringing and discussion whether the mandate was clear enough). There was a link with Theresa May - she may have been in Welsh parliament.
Could be this one: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Welsh_devolution_refere...
If that recollection is roughly correct, political implications of the Brexit result would be "whatever suits you best".
You can definitely argue how far that argument holds sway - after all, any government could change its citizenship rules for expats. But Brexit clearly was a different case than regular elections. The government was embarking upon a sea change for expats - changing the rules of the game while playing.
Younger generations are thankfully easing up on this stuff, but eastern Europeans were not seen as "real Europeans" by western Europeans for a very long time. The same was true, though to a lesser extent of southern Europeans in the eyes of northern Europeans, something that stopped being so true a bit earlier.
Voting to remain meant voting for the status-quo, something many people weren’t happy with for perfectly legitimate reasons.
Voting to leave meant, well it meant all things to all people. The leave campaign focused on the boundless opportunities offered by leaving the EU and becoming a “more sovereign” nation, while ignoring the practical realities of life without the EU. So while Brexit certainly bring opportunities not available with the EU, it’s not clear the UK is in a position to capitalise on those opportunities, and loosing access to your largest trading partner certainly doesn’t make thing easier.
EU come with baggage, that’s undeniable, but it also brings tremendous benefits, which the UK had become used to, and no longer recognised as EU benefits. And when you offer people the opportunity to get rid of the baggage, and they don’t the benefits that they’re also getting rid off, it’s easy to see why people voted leave.
Can you elaborate on these legitimate reasons?
That stagnation has slowly eroded away peoples hope of a better future. Things aren’t getting better, they’re either staying the same or sliding backwards.
None of this of course has anything to do with the EU, if anything the EU development funding was they only thing preventing an even worse backslide. But the UK government deliberately refused to advertise when EU money was used to develop areas (something the EU has now banned), and has for decades used the EU as a scapegoat for the failure of national government. Do that for enough years, and it’s shouldn’t be much surprise that people started believing the rhetoric.
Additionally free movement of people brought it own issues, almost all of the self inflicted. A number of areas in the UK suffered greatly due to the abusive, and almost certainly illegal, practice of farmers hiring cheap imported labour that was underpaid, and abandoned outside of harvest season. The result of populations of starving abandoned Eastern Europeans forced into criminality in order to survive winter. Another catastrophic failure of national government, but when you’re being mugged by someone who doesn’t speak English, I doubt your going to take the time to understand why your mugger is mugging you.
The great irony of all this, is that the EU in its own way saw these issues, and gave members ways of limiting migration from newly joined member states, while those states completed their integration process and could create their own local opportunities with the help of the EU. The UK in its infinite wisdom decided to forgo all those controls and allow complete freedom of movement from day 0, and then blame the EU for the somewhat predictable results.
I don’t blame the EU for any of the above problems. They’re almost entirely the result of national government refusing to properly engage with the EU. But the problems had real impact on peoples lives, and the inability of UK government to acknowledge or tackle them meant there was no reason to believe they would get better while we remained in the EU. So I can see why leaving becomes an clear and obvious solution.
Quite frankly I think the greatest Brexit benefit is the removal of the fig leaf the EU provided for national failures of government. The UK government’s incompetence is on full display, and if we’re lucky, we finally get some competent politicians again.
I recall reading that it appealed to Brits with immigrant backgrounds because they felt like Europeans are having it too easy or something like that.
The other argument was about having a point system instead of letting anyone in, so the European engineers and Indian engineers for example would have the same rights and this will yield in more meritocratic system.
Somehow the companies are not good enough in picking the employees with the correct skillset, for example a British company is hiring unskilled Hungarians as engineers so to fix this the British companies first need to get a permission from the government which will evaluate the person, pay fees and wait a few month for processing to do the right kind of hires.
- Osborne: We will impose massive emergency taxes if you are naughty enough to vote leave (a lie).
- Cameron: I will definitely not resign as PM if I lose the vote (a lie which made the previous lie more believable, he resigned immediately)
- Cameron: I will trigger Article 50 immediately (a lie).
- HM Treasury: Voting leave will cause an immediate recession that will destroy 500,000-800,000 jobs according to expert modelling (wrong, baseless)
- Clegg: the EU army Brexit supporters talk about is a fantasy (a lie, the first post-brexit EU meeting was dominated by the sudden urgency of setting up an EU army)
- Obama in 2016: UK at the "back of the queue" for a US trade deal if voting for Brexit. A lie, turned out Cameron had asked him to say this, by 2018 US Treasury Secretary was saying "UK at front of the queue" for trade deal when ready.
- A vote to leave would cause Scotland to leave the union (didn't happen).
- John Major, Paddy Ashdown, Nick Clegg: The referendum vote is final and a once in a lifetime decision (a lie, all these politicians agitated for a second referendum)
- Cameron: my negotiations secured a "special status" for the UK in EU (a lie sent to every household in the UK via mailshot: everything Cameron got agreement on was either not new or not legally binding).
- Osborne: families will be exactly £4300 a week worse off if leaving the EU (an attempt to divide modelled reduction in GDP growth by population which is nonsensical, even the BBC rejected this one).
HN is flooded with self proclaimed "EU citizen" types so this perspective is rarely presented here, but the reality is that especially once they realized they might lose, a staggering number of influential media and political elites started lying their pants off to try and ensure they'd win. This probably backfired in the end, as their lies were often quite transparent and led people to wonder what they were all so afraid of.
The consequences of the vote were clear 6 years back. The problem is since then, there have been endless attempts to deliver a different outcome. To muddy the waters and suggest that actually what people really wanted was prize A, B, or C.
We left the EU and articles like this shouldn’t surprise anyone.
Many of the current ills in the UK are directly or indirectly caused by Brexit, from labour shortages to increased haulage costs leading to a trade deficit and rising food prices. The whole thing has just been an obvious disaster. Specifically, the Office of Budget Responsibility [1] "estimates that our GDP will be 4 per cent lower than it otherwise would be because of Brexit (even without any further deterioration in the UK/EU relationship) and Brexit disruption to supply chains has already contributed to 6 per cent higher food prices". Using the most recent figure for national GDP from the Office for National Statistics [2] of £616.870 b, that's a cost of ~£2.5 bn. Nothing in comparison to the £4bn that the Tories have spent on broken PPE that they propose to burn to generate power [3] but still, a hell of a lot.
I will probably vote labour at the next election. It angers me deeply that they aren't campaigning about rejoining the EU – but were I to vote for the lib dems, who are, I fear a Tory would get in. I feel deeply that now, EVERYTHING IS WORSE FOR NO PURPOSE. Why! It's an absolute head-meet-desk (or foot-meet-gun) moment and it just seems to have been...accepted. The Union is breaking apart, we are stuck with an incompetent government by even its own piss-poor standards, with no democratic recourse and no option for undoing the damage done. Urgh. No wonder I've essentially decided to emigrate (to Europe).
[1] https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2022/05/the-economic-co... [2] https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp [3] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jun/10/4bn-of-nhs-c...
Encouraged by the mass media. Brexit is one of the biggest ever newspaper campaigning successes. They simply had to lie about everything.
> EVERYTHING IS WORSE FOR NO PURPOSE.
Yes, and it's enraging; we're dealing with a delusional political class who care about nothing but themselves, and the press support them because otherwise the oligarchs who own the papers might face more tax or scrutiny.
Meaning British citizens are officially not EU citizens anymore. (barring dual citizens)
It's nearly six years since the referendum - who exactly is surprised by this "development"?
Yes it wasn't perhaps my choice, but trying to relive the result repeatedly with the same vitriol anger isn't healthy. Even more so defining your identity around it e.g. FBPE (Follow back, Pro EU) on Twitter. It also doesn't help the rejoin cause to spew such negativity and hatred at the other 50% of the population.
Subsequent to light being shed, i find it to be about the most sinister and vile organisation it is possible to imagine.
Even then, ignoring my personal feelings, it is obvious these people over invested themselves with a fairly inconsequential team and are over compensating for it.
Look at the news on veto removal today. Only a hardcore shill would defend this organisation.
Interesting fact: fear of immigration has evaporated after Brexit, despite that immigration to UK has increased. Maybe the Brexiters finally sleep well knowing that "they have control over their borders" or maybe the the media campaign of fear mongering died off.[0]
I'm very sorry that UK citizens lost their EU citizenship, British are part of Europe and have a huge positive impact. I'm sorry that you will need to pay fees, fill forms, get employment rejections due to non-meritocratic reasons like paperwork and visa.
Putting the government as the first line in the human resources is just beyond me. Feels like we are treated like cattle and persons need to prove worthiness to work and stay with us to the bureaucrats. It's not even the rules of immigration, which might make sense in certain situation but the act of working through the process itself is dehumanising. It's not enough to find a job that pays above certain amount or considered in demand, you need to spend money and time to expose yourself to someone who doesn't know you and has no business in your dealings and hope that they find you worthy.
[0] https://twitter.com/donmoyn/status/1532041219601223682
I'll never give up on the European Project personally, and it makes me deeply sad to cross the border and not have the Union Citizenship I always cherished. If it had been an option due to my ancestry, I would have gotten an alternative EU passport (as many if not most of my friends have). Brexit has made it infinitely more difficult to bring my fiancee into the country (in a bygone era we would have just Surinder Singh-ed as it's next to impossible for self-employed people to reunite with family in the UK), and has deeply degraded democracy in the UK (see proroguing parliament).
The only recourse here would be for UK citizens to apply for European citizenship in a member state of their choice, but that's a long, complicated process, not dissimilar to the process of becoming a recognised UK citizen. It's also incredibly difficult if you're not highly-skilled, already living abroad and/or have access to exchange programs that offer a way in, such as access to education.
For the person in question, this should be easy: France requires that you've lived there for five years, have knowledge of France and speak French, something I'd expect should be quite doable if you've lived there for fifteen years. The UK allows for double citizenship, so I think there's an easy way out for people in such situations without giving up any rights in the home country, much easier than for most people who come to France from outside the EU.
I do hope the tensions around the northern Irish border situation won't impede UK citizens even more in the years to come. The way the UK seems to be coming back on their promises paints a grim image for things to come.
Headlines today say that the UK government will come out with a proposal next week that would violate the current border agreements. The current customs situation is an enormous hassle for the Northern Irish people, basically forming a customs border within the Kingdom, and the UK government want to cut through the red tape. That's not necessarily bad, it makes complete sense, but it's made difficult by the fact the easy solution (just putting a border between the two Irelands) isn't feasible.
If the UK decides to unilaterally alter the deal, Ireland may be required to enforce their customs policy along the border, which is feared to spark more violence in the area. After all, Ireland is either in the customs union or it's not, it can't become a free corridor for UK goods to enter the EU.
Sinn Féin and the DUP being at odds with each other after the latter lost the election certainly isn't helping. This whole situation is a mess and that's why I think the UK government altering their deal will only cause problems.
I hope that cooler heads prevail here. The rumoured proposal is still just that, a proposal. If it gets shot down, or if it gets held back until the situation has cooled down a bit, this might just turn into yet another round of EU negotiations.
A majority of people in NI recently voted for parties that support the NIP, and NI and London are the only regions in the UK that are currently experiencing growth. I think it might be more opportunity than hassle.
It's stunning to watch videos of Britons confused about why they've lost certain privileges, only a short while after voting to leave the place that gave them those privileges. It's like canceling your gym membership because it's too expensive, then wanting to fight the manager because they won't let you work out there anymore. I have so much sympathy for those that knew what Brexit meant, tried to fight it, and lost the vote.
I've been mentally comparing this to the 2016 US election where an (electoral) majority got Trump elected as President. But we still have large swathes of the US population that were VERY happy with all 4 years of his presidency. I'm curious how many Britons in 2016 were similarly as vocal for their support of the referendum, and are still just as happy today with the results.
Have you consided that some of the people who are confused about this DID NOT VOTE TO LEAVE? That they are confused because nobody explained, or could explain, at the time of the Brexit, that these wouldbe the consequences? The Leave campaign was (at best) disingenous about the consequences; the Remain campaign could not predict all the consequences because that would require an actual deal to analyze.