EU Referendum: The result and aftermath...

[furnessvale]

Who's "us"?

And what is "everything"?
And who is "they"?

Us = pro brexiters ie the majority

They = pro remainers ie the minority

Everything = the EU and everything it stands for!

 

[meridian2]

There's an important point that many people are missing.
Young people overwhelmingly voted to remain.
Old people overwhelmingly voted to leave.

Is that a fair, reasonable, democratic outcome?

)

No, that's a generalisation with very little evidence, and even so, those that were interviewed in the areas where 'Leave' outweighed 'Remain' (Hull for instance0, the demographic of those voters suggested they were far from 'old', not to mention your use of the word 'overwhelmingly' is quite disingenuous.

 

[anme]

Us = pro brexiters ie the majority

They = pro remainers ie the minority

Everything = the EU and everything it stands for!

This is PERFECT "leaver" post! No facts, lots of paranoia.

What's your opinion of the UK's "first past the post" electoral system, which means the current government has a majority in parliament despite getting less than 37% of the vote at the last general election?

 

[furnessvale]

This is PERFECT "leaver" post! No facts, lots of paranoia.

What's your opinion of the UK's "first past the post" electoral system, which means the current government has a majority in parliament despite getting less than 37% of the vote at the last general election?

Seems to work for government as well as Brexit.

Win - win to me!

 

[EM2]

Why not, they have imposed everything else on us for the last 40 years.

Such as?

 

[northwichcat]

No, that's a generalisation with very little evidence, and even so, those that were interviewed in the areas where 'Leave' outweighed 'Remain' (Hull for instance0, the demographic of those voters suggested they were far from 'old', not to mention your use of the word 'overwhelmingly' is quite disingenuous.

People in the most deprived areas generally voted leave regardless of their age. Manchester voted remain as did Liverpool and both have relatively young populations.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I suppose that depends on whether or not you believe that people get more conservative as they get older. It could be the case that in three years' time, a couple of percent of Remain voters transfer to a Leave position.

Well as far as I can make out, probably the biggest reason why young people were more likely to support Remain is that young people tend to be more internationalist in outlook, and are more likely to see freedom of movement as a good rather than a bad thing - presumably reflecting that young people have grown up in an age where international travel and communications are much easier. I can't offhand think of any reason for expecting that attitude to go away as those people get older, so that suggests to me that support for Remain would grow with time.

Indeed, social attitudes on many, many things have changed out of all recognition over the last few centuries (For example, acceptance of gay equality, or attitudes towards the British Empire between 1930 and 1960ish). It doesn't seem implausible to suggest that one of the main driving forces behind those attitude changes was older people dying and younger people with more radical views taking their place. I know there's a fair bit of guesswork there, but that seems rather suggestive that internationalist views favourable to institutions like the EU may well grow over the next few decades.

However, there is a completely different factor that may reduce support for EU membership in the future: If we leave then that will become the status quo. I'd imagine that support for actually re-joining the EU if we're not a member would attract rather less support than the level of support for simply maintaining the status quo if we are already members - the present situation.

 

[317 forever]

The Liberals won the Richmond seat because the Conservatives did not field a candidate and, irrespective of the Heathrow extension issue, the Conservative voters did not vote for a candidate who deserted the party. With all due respect to Christian Woolmar, Jeremy Corbyn and his associates have done serios damage to the Labour Party. So, who was left - the Liberal candidate who then jumped at the opportunity to attack Brexit and say the vote was a reflection of the opposition to Brexit because she is a Remoaner. She stated that she was representing her constituents, the majority of whom who had voted against Brexit in the Referendum. The General Election and this by-election were to elect a person to represent their constituency but the Referendum on June 23rd was a vote relevant to the country as a whole. Ms Olsen said she would oppose the triggering of Article 50 which, ignoring my last sentence, shows her as anti democratic and wanting to prevent Brexit at all costs just ignoring the views of the majority.

As a majority of her constituents voted to Remain, her vote against Article 50 is a democratic decision which does reflect her constituents' views. My own MP Ann Coffey similarly voted against Article 50, and I was shocked by Remain constituency MPs such as Diane Abbott who voted in favour of Article 50 in defiance of their local constituents. Even Ken Clarke similarly honoured his constituents' vote in voting against Article 50.
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Snigger

Tory down. UKIP down. Labour down. Lib dem up.

Coming hard on the heels of Richmond Park and the rise of the LibDem vote in Sleaford, they are up to 11% in a Sunday Politics poll. The Tories are on 42%, Labour on 25% and UKIP on 12%. So a gradual swing from Labour to the LibDems who have a clearer and more positive policy on Europe is already underway.

 

[Railops]

Coming hard on the heels of Richmond Park and the rise of the LibDem vote in Sleaford, they are up to 11% in a Sunday Politics poll. The Tories are on 42%, Labour on 25% and UKIP on 12%. So a gradual swing from Labour to the LibDems who have a clearer and more positive policy on Europe is already underway.

The latest ICM poll yesterday has Con-41, Lab-27, UKIP-14, Lib-9. so you're statement that the Liberals are gaining ground is somewhat misplaced.

 

[Howardh]

The latest ICM poll yesterday has Con-41, Lab-27, UKIP-14, Lib-9. so you're statement that the Liberals are gaining ground is somewhat misplaced.

Libdems up 2, UKIP up 2, Tories down 3 and the Labour voter was out so, technically, Libdems is the biggest rise.

Means nowt though (but for the Libdems it's better than nothing) but the figures seem to show a move from the Tories to UKIP. Still difficult for UKIP to get many seats, whereas Libdems could recover lost ground in 2015 and 25 seats+ is realistic.

 

[ungreat]

God help us all if those UKIP buffoons ever get any foothold

 

[Groningen]

Dutch woman with two British children told to leave UK after 24 years.

A Dutch woman who has lived in the UK for 24 years, and has two children with her British husband, has been told by the Home Office that she should make arrangements to leave the country after she applied for citizenship after the EU referendum.

The story of Monique Hawkins highlights the practical difficulties faced by millions of EU citizens concerned that they will not have the right to stay in Britain post-Brexit.

Hawkins had considered applying for citizenship before but decided not to as it did not confer any rights beyond her current EU rights. However, after the referendum she changed her mind, fearful that those rights would be diminished after Britain leaves the EU.

European citizens marrying Britons do not automatically qualify for UK citizenship under current rules and Hawkins was concerned that if she did not apply she would be forced “to join a US-style two-hour immigration queue” while the rest of her family “sail through the UK passport lane”.

In order to get citizenship, she first had to get a “permanent residency” document, which involves an 85-page application form.

Hawkins said the Home Office had overlooked vital information in her submission – she was unable to supply an original of her Dutch passport because her father had recently died and she needed her passport to continue to travel to the Netherlands to support her mother.

However, the department not only rejected her application but sent her a letter which took no account of her right to be in the country irrespective of their decision. “As you appear to have no alternative basis of stay in the United Kingdom you should now make arrangements to leave,” the letter said.

When she phoned the Home Office to discuss the decision communicated to her in October, four months after her application, she was told her case could not be discussed on the phone or by email. Hawkins said her treatment by the Home Office was as absurd as a “Monty Python” sketch.

In a written complaint, Hawkins said the worst aspect about the process was the inability to contact anyone. She wrote: “I do not believe there is any other business, organisation or even legal process in the world that would treat its customers/clients/applicants in this manner.”

The software engineer, from Surrey, said she never once thought she would be deported but said her experience highlights the absurdity of the Home Office permanent residency process.

She was told that under the rules she could not talk to anyone about her case and after making her written complaint she received a letter saying her complaint did not qualify as a complaint under Home Office guidelines.

She also protested that while the Home Office would not discuss her case with her personally, it was willing to respond to her MP Dominic Raab, who intervened on her behalf.

She has now written to appeal, but says in her complaint: “I am now left totally in limbo. I do not know how long to wait for a reply. I do not know whether my application will be reopened or not.”

She was told the reason for the rejection was because she had not included her original passport.

In her complaint, Hawkins points out that she included a solicitor-approved photocopy of her passport – which is permissible under the rules – plus a covering letter to explain why she could not be without her passport for the four to six months it takes to process.

She said the application form included a box for reasons for not including a valid passport as long as it was due to circumstances beyond your control. “Clearly my father dying did not qualify in the Home Office’s eyes as beyond my control,” said Hawkins.

Hawkins’s complaint also states that her covering letter for her original application said that she would provide her original passport once the case worker assigned to it needed to see it.

Hawkins, who is a software developer and the daughter of a former oil company executive, lived in several countries as a child and says the UK is the only place she feels she can call home. She studied maths at Cambridge University and settled in the UK in 1992. She lives in Surrey and has two children, aged 15 and 17. “I always used to feel I had no roots. Because of my dad’s background we used to move every five years. This is the first time I’ve laid down roots,” she said.

“I had a massive shock following the referendum. I felt very stressed and suddenly felt walking down the street that the place didn’t want me any more. That feeling began to subside, but I thought I should apply for citizenship.”

The application form, which includes a “flummoxing” requirement to list every absence from the UK in the past 24 years, took an entire weekend to complete, she said. “It is important to realise that in applying for permanent residency I am not gaining a right, I am only getting a document stating a right I already have,” she said.

Her husband, Robert, raised another issue: that Europeans married to Britons do not have an automatic right to citizenship. “As a British citizen, I had the expectation that marrying someone from abroad would automatically give them the right to become a British citizen. That seems to be the case unless your wife happens to come from the European Union,” he said.

Hawkins, who has resubmitted an application for permanent residency, said she believed her case drew attention to the “discrimination against EU/UK marriages”. The British spouse cannot sponsor their EU partner and the EU spouse has to apply on their own merits. If they have not worked and are supported by their spouse, they may not meet the selection criteria.

The Home Office said: “The rights of EU nationals living in the UK remain unchanged while we are a member of the European Union. EU nationals do not require any additional documents to prove their status.”

It said Hawkins’s application could not be progressed because the original ID was missing. It said since October, applications could be submitted online and it had also launched an express passport check-in service in 58 local councils around the country, including one 10 miles from Hawkins’s home.

Hawkins’s case is just one of many similar experiences of EU citizens panicked into applying for permanent residency. German aerospace executive Lars Graefe, who has lived in the UK since 1998, and is married to a British woman, said he received a similar “make-preparations-to-leave” letter from the Home Office.

He couldn’t surrender his passport because he travels every week and made a complaint because he too thought he satisfied the provision for not including original documentation.

“The point I raised in my complaint was about the process. Even if they couldn’t verify I was German, I still qualify to remain. Clearly the Home Office don’t know how to deal with EU citizens. If you were in the private sector and treated customers like this you would be sacked,” he said.

Source: The Guardian

 

[AlterEgo]

So, nothing to do with Brexit, and everything to do with the Home Office needing to see a passport, then.

 

[Groningen]

Yes it has.

 

[AlterEgo]

Yes it has.

So are Dutch people being told they can't stay here then *as a result of Brexit*?

Or, are they instead being told they can't have right to remain if they can't provide their passport to complete the requisite paperwork, compounded with an admin error in sending a letter suggesting the Dutch, EU citizen should make arrangements to leave? This is a non-sequitur and has always been the case.

There is quite a difference between the two!

 

[radamfi]

David Hembrow, who moved from Cambridge to Assen nearly 10 years ago, has encountered issues in trying to acquire Dutch citizenship.

http://davidhembrow.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/brexit-my-country-was-taken-from-me.html

By the end of last week I'd received the results for all five exams which I took at the beginning of September. Unfortunately, I've just been told that this isn't enough at all. There's a sixth exam, "Orientation in the Dutch labour market" which I was not told about when booking the other exams online but which I've just been told about in email. This exam can only be applied for with a written application form. The exam which I've not taken requires a lot of work. I need to build up a portfolio showing that I've been applying for jobs. I've of course not been applying for jobs because I already have a job. We've run our own business in the Netherlands for nine years. It keeps us, we pay taxes. We're not unemployed and that's why we're not seeking work. But to become a Dutch citizen it seems I have to pretend to be unemployed and seeking work. What nonsense is this ?

It's already taken three months since Brexit to take and get results for what appears now to have been the five easy exams. During this time, no-one though to suggest to me that I needed to take a sixth exam, for which I needed a portfolio which I could have been building up for the last three months. Now I have to start again and there's an even greater chance than before that I will not be able to get all the paperwork together in time for the brexit at the end of March. What happens after that point ? No-one knows. It may be that everything I've done so far won't help me at all after March.

 

[yorksrob]

It all rather illustrates the need for the UK and EU to come up with an agreement regarding Nationals settled overseas as soon as possible and exclusive of other negotiations. This would be sensible and in both sides interest.

 

[radamfi]

People have also been spending large sums of money to acquire British or EU citizenship (several £1,000s for larger families) just in case it is needed. If we got this sorted now this expenditure would not be required.

 

[furnessvale]

It all rather illustrates the need for the UK and EU to come up with an agreement regarding Nationals settled overseas as soon as possible and exclusive of other negotiations. This would be sensible and in both sides interest.

Fully agree. Sadly the offer has been made by the UK but rebuffed by the EU. Somehow, this has been translated to be the fault of the UK.

 

[northwichcat]

Fully agree. Sadly the offer has been made by the UK but rebuffed by the EU.

As far as I was aware we hadn't even given formal notice to the EU we are leaving yet you're saying we've concluded talks and failed to reach an agreement on one particular area?

 

[yorksrob]

As far as I was aware we hadn't even given formal notice to the EU we are leaving yet you're saying we've concluded talks and failed to reach an agreement on one particular area?

I don't believe it is appropriate to consider the status of settled residents as just another area of agreement, to be subsumed in the general negotiations.

There's been a public vote by UK citizens in favour of leaving the political union of the EU. The British Government has signalled it's intention start leaving proceedings in the new year.

There is absolutely no reason why this vital issue cannot be agreed in principle, unless one side is intent on holding things up to make a political point, to the detriment of it's own citizens.

 

[furnessvale]

There is absolutely no reason why this vital issue cannot be agreed in principle, unless one side is intent on holding things up to make a political point, to the detriment of it's own citizens.

That would be the EU then, as precisely that offer was made by Theresa May some time ago, only to be rebuffed by the EU.

 

[yorksrob]

That would be the EU then, as precisely that offer was made by Theresa May some time ago, only to be rebuffed by the EU.

I have been unimpressed by the position of the EU on this matter so far.

The UK and the Irish Republic have both confirmed their wish to maintain an open border between the two countries. This at least gives citizens the confidence that their Governments will be working towards this eventuality.

How much better it would have been for people across the EU if, at the recent summit, the 27 states had issued a statement to the effect that their intention was that there should be an agreement that settled nationals should be allowed to reside permanently in the country where they are settled.

 

[northwichcat]

That would be the EU then, as precisely that offer was made by Theresa May some time ago, only to be rebuffed by the EU.

The same Theresa May who's refusing to reveal specific details because doing so would 'make our negotiating position weak'?

 

[Howardh]

I have been unimpressed by the position of the EU on this matter so far.

The UK and the Irish Republic have both confirmed their wish to maintain an open border between the two countries. This at least gives citizens the confidence that their Governments will be working towards this eventuality.

How much better it would have been for people across the EU if, at the recent summit, the 27 states had issued a statement to the effect that their intention was that there should be an agreement that settled nationals should be allowed to reside permanently in the country where they are settled.

If the Republic stays within the EU, then any agreement between both countries will be abandoned if the EU doesn't want an open external border (which is what it will be) as, regarding trade at least, that means the Irish will have an advantage over all the other 26 who will be disadvantaged - so it ain't gonna happen.

However, if the UK went down the single market/customs union/EEA route, then all agreements between us and RoI would stay in place.

In which case, why go through all the expense and trouble of leaving the EU when we would be all-but-in it? And still subject to most of it's laws and dictats?

 

[yorksrob]

If the Republic stays within the EU, then any agreement between both countries will be abandoned if the EU doesn't want an open external border (which is what it will be) as, regarding trade at least, that means the Irish will have an advantage over all the other 26 who will be disadvantaged - so it ain't gonna happen.

However, if the UK went down the single market/customs union/EEA route, then all agreements between us and RoI would stay in place.

In which case, why go through all the expense and trouble of leaving the EU when we would be all-but-in it? And still subject to most of it's laws and dictats?

Well it's true that the Republic can't agree on behalf of the rest of the EU, however that hasn't stopped both them and the UK agreeing to work towards that eventuality.

With the issue of settled nationals, an understanding should be easier to reach as all EU countries have residents in the UK and the UK has residents in all EU countries. The 27 member states had lunch together at the summit specifically to discuss Brexit, so then would have been an ideal opportunity to make such a statement.

On the last point, there's an element of truth to it, but the decision has been made, so we might as well get on with it.

 

[radamfi]

The UK and the Irish Republic have both confirmed their wish to maintain an open border between the two countries. This at least gives citizens the confidence that their Governments will be working towards this eventuality.

Have they actually, though, committed to allowing citizens to live in each other's countries? You may still be able to travel across the border without a border check, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can live across the border. I suspect there is no issue in the case of Irish citizens as they have always been able to live in the UK regardless of the EU as British law effectively treats Irish people as being the same as British. But if the UK bans EU citizens from living in the UK without visas, meaning that the EU imposes a similar restriction on Brits, then maybe the EU would require Ireland to also impose visa restrictions on Brits wanting to live in Ireland?

 

[yorksrob]

Have they actually, though, committed to allowing citizens to live in each other's countries? You may still be able to travel across the border without a border check, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can live across the border. I suspect there is no issue in the case of Irish citizens as they have always been able to live in the UK regardless of the EU as British law effectively treats Irish people as being the same as British. But if the UK bans EU citizens from living in the UK without visas, meaning that the EU imposes a similar restriction on Brits, then maybe the EU would require Ireland to also impose visa restrictions on Brits wanting to live in Ireland?

Well it might do, but the open border with Ireland is about a lot more than British and Irish citizens right to settle in each others countries. If the EU were to require UK citizens to have a visa to settle in the Republic, I would envisage the UK and the Republic might still work to maintain as much of the common travel area as possible short of the right to settle.

In the absense of input from the rest of the EU, I would have thought that the default positions of the UK and Irish Republic would be to revert to the provisions of the Common Travel Area.

 

[AlterEgo]

Well it might do, but the open border with Ireland is about a lot more than British and Irish citizens right to settle in each others countries. If the EU were to require UK citizens to have a visa to settle in the Republic, I would envisage the UK and the Republic might still work to maintain as much of the common travel area as possible short of the right to settle.

In the absense of input from the rest of the EU, I would have thought that the default positions of the UK and Irish Republic would be to revert to the provisions of the Common Travel Area.

True. I expect the CTA to remain largely intact. I don't think the EU would particularly wish to meddle with the CTA as it is a somewhat unusual arrangement.

As a minor point, the Irish Republic is not a thing any more and hasn't been since 1922. The country is called Ireland, or the Republic of Ireland, if you want to differentiate between the geographic and constitutional application of the name.

 

[furnessvale]

The same Theresa May who's refusing to reveal specific details because doing so would 'make our negotiating position weak'?

You are talking about a totally different matter.....but then you know that anyway....Don't you?