Our country post Brexit

For the last ten years I have known that throughout the EU none of the politicians care about their constituents. The one matter they have all been concentrating on is the euro. So that is why there has been so much unemployment and financial stress across much of the EU with Germany holding firm because of its stance brought over from their mark. They promised Germans that the new currency would always be as strong as the mark and Merkel has stuck to that no matter what happened elsewhere.

The Exit-from-Brexit march had about 50,000 (guess) but it has not been reported on BBC News other than on the website. Due to hurricane Irma, North Korea and even the Great North Run. It was ill timed which is most unfortunate considering how important the issue is to our country.

It only seems to be the Guardian and the Independent who try to report Brexit objectively. The majority of the media and the population meekly follow the line, saying either they voted LEAVE on false premises they still hold true or in acceptance of the result of a flawed referendum.

How do we wake the population up?

Tomorrow's papers have reports on a speech by Blair saying we should bring in the very regulations we have been discussing - which he didn't of course.

Sorry no link a this point.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/09/brexit-pro-eu-demonstration-london

I knew it didn't have to happen petra. I knew how Germany stops the well qualified getting jobs but this is the first time I have seen so clearly how another country works. Governments just seem to have been so lax about it all and then blamed the EU. I actually knew that too but I am getting more and more - I actually don't know what to call it - frustrated, angry, upset, shocked, that governments have played the population in the way they have when they could have made it work. And this one for the most self-interested reasons it seems to me.

CherryHatrick
Thank you for putting it straight as to how other countries treat migrants. There are many on here who think that we, the uk, are the nasty mean man of Europe.
GracesGran
Yes, that's right. It didn't have to happen.
I had to jump through all the hoops that CH had to jump through, in two eu countries.

So, if I read this right CherryHatrick, the EU would not have stopped us doing this as Spain was already doing it. The things that the government is now suggesting could, if they thought it the right to do, could have been done without us leaving the EU. Is that right?

Cindersdad
Evening Standard
"Organisers estimated around 50,000 marchers took part in the rally, many of whom carried banners which read "I love EU" and wearing t-shirts with the slogan: "Remoaner 'till I die"."

The Guardian quotes the same figure.

I´ve just followed your link, DJ and this stood out to me:

EU nationals would be required to travel on a passport and not a national ID card. They would also have to apply for a biometric residence permit, which may include a fingerprint, after they had stayed for between three and six months.
There is nothing here that has not already applied to me at some point since I arrived in Spain. I needed a visa to come in, I applied for a 3 month Permanencia (permission to stay in the country), then another and another. Each time I had to surrender my passport for the duration, and have my fingerprints taken. After 3 Permanencias I could apply for a Residencia that was valid for 2 years, and yes, it had my photograph and my fingerprint on it. At the end of the 2 years I was given a Residencia for 5 years, again requiring a trip to the regional capital Police station for fingerprints. This 5 yearly trip was repeated until 2010 when the Residencia was discontinued for EU citizens (mot of whom have ID cards anyway), but continues for other nationalities.

In defiance of the EU’s free-movement directive, residence permits would not be granted to jobseekers. Instead, a specific “income threshold” would be introduced for “self-sufficient” migrants.

This already applies in Spain. If you are of working age and come to Spain without a job, and you want to register as a resident, you need to prove you have enough to live on and not be a burden on the State (an income more than the State's upper limit for those who qualify for some benefits), you must own a home or have a rental contract, and you also have to have a private health insurance that covers you for all eventualities, because State Health Care is Contribution based, not residence based.

I haven't seen anything about the "Exit from Brexit" march but this is on the BBC website Exit from Brexit though it does not mention numbers beyond saying thousands.

My girls can't claim automatic Swiss Nationality, Durhamjen, because they don´t have a Swiss mother, a rule obviously brought in before the dawn of DNA testing when you could prove who the mother was but not the father; the only way they, or I, come to that, could get it would be to go and live in Switzerland for 5 years and then apply. The fact that I was not married to their father when they were born has no bearing on this. We are now married and our marriage certificate and the children' birth certificates are lodged in the official Registry, but the rule still stands. The same rule seems to apply in the UK if you are an "Alien" (non-EU) married to a British citizen.

A child born and raised in Spain has no automatic right to Spanish Nationality, even though they may have a Spanish birth certificate. When they are 18, they can choose to apply for it, on the 10 year residency rule, but it is not an automatic right, and they would have to give up any other passport they were entitled to. Personally, I am of the opinion that having an EU passport may, in the future, be an advantage that your "Danish" GS will appreciate

This doesn't help either the EU citizens wanting to come here, or already here, or UK citizens living abroad.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/09/hard-brexit-implications-government-leaked-document

This should have been one of the easiest problems for the government to sort out, but makes me think that they are still to be used as bargaining chips.

They have both been working for years.

I should have made that clearer, CherryHatrick. You haven't been on for long, I don't think.
One daughter in law is Spanish, the other Danish.
My grandson born in 2002 is considered Danish, as his parents were not married when he was born. The rules changed before his sister was born in 2007, and she is considered British. All five grandchildren were born in the UK. All of them could get EU passports because of their other grandparents. Only my grandson born in 2002 cannot have a UK passport.

I am not allowed to vote in a General Election, varian, in either country, (15 year rule) but I do get a vote in local elections and in European elections, and so should DJ's daughters in law. Paying tax and NI should be enough to prove you have been resident, but if you are a a SAHM you may not be paying them. These poor people are paying the price of the UK's ineptitude and laxity.

The same laxity and ineptitude applies to health tourism.

CherryHatrick I was just referring to DJ's daughters in law who have been here for over twenty years and yet do not have these rights. I also have a German friend who has lived in the UK for over twenty-five years and has worked, paid taxes etc and contributed to our country in many ways yet does not have these rights.

Of course people like that are not allowed to vote in a general election and were barred from voting in the EU referendum, which affected them so crucially.

durhamjen yes of course they should be allowed to stay, but instead of the UK treating them like non-EUs and demanding they fill in a 35 page application, they should have instigated a simple process when they joined the EU, like every other EU country did. But of course the UK isn´t like the other countries, is it? Non EU nationals have to jump through hoops to get a right to remain in their passports. My husband had to report to the local Police Station every month for the first five years he lived in the UK; not only sign in, but show proof he was still living in the same house and working in the same place. When he moved jobs and address he had to notify the Home Office.

varian who has suggested that immigrants should have to live in the UK for twenty years in order to get Permanent residence? Is this something the Tories have leaked today, because I haven't seen it reported anywhere

It is reasonable that an immigrant should be expected to live here, working, studying or caring for family, paying taxes and being law-abiding for a certain minimum time before enjoying the full rights of citizens - but that minimum time should not be twenty years or anything like it.

Surely the fact that an EU national is married, has kids and has paid tax and NI here for over 20 years should be enough to allow them to stay, except, of course, in the eyes of vindictive right wingers.

Welshwife I think part of the problem is the UK's resistance to any form of ID control of its own nationals; EU rules say that foreign nationals from the EU have to be treated the same as nationals. In other EU countries their Gov. keeps track. UK chose not to. I have permanent residence in Spain because I have had the paperwork to prove it since I arrived in 1986. Without registering my residence I would have no right to vote, and as a pensioner, no access to healthcare, no reduction in my electricity bills and council bills and lots of other things, including holidays subsidised by the state. There are thousands of UK nationals living "under the radar" here, but they can legalise themselves by filling in two sides of an A4 sheet, proving they have enough income/capital to live on, private health cover or an S1 and paying about seven Euros, and exactly the same system applies to those from non-EU countries as well. The UK has no middle road, it's all or nothing.

I think the families of mixed nationals is a huge issue. If rules on this subject are reciprocal the people who marry another national will never be able to live together. It is heartbreaking for many people but it is also ridiculous. There has to be an agreement that a married couple has the right to live in either of the countries without having many hoops to jump through all the time or visas to repeatedly pay for.
There are so many cases of EU nationals living in UK for decades suddenly being told they have no right to remain and must leave. How can that be right or even legal? This certainly is an area where there must be some resolution.

I guess that the referendum and brexit is like an open wound that, just when I think it's slightly starting to heal over starts up again. All the people who I felt represented me last year [and they were a cross party bunch] have now got my undying gratitude and I struggle to forgive those who I felt let me down. Never before has a political issue upset/affected me so much and for so long . I'm quite happy to march against IDS and Johnson; preferably if they are lying face down in the mud and I can march over them.....

opendemocracy.net/uk/brexitinc/james-cusick/mps-demand-full-investigation-of-hard-brexit-backing-tory-party-within-par

opendemocracy.net/uk/brexitinc/james-cusick-adam-ramsay-crina-boros/revealed-tory-mps-using-taxpayers-cash-to-fund-sec

Andrea Leadsom, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Liam Fox among others.

Amber Rudd, Anna Soubry and Stephen Crabb are all legitimate targets for Labour to want to oust. They all have fewer than a thousand majority.
Iain Duncan Smith, Boris Johnson, Philip Davis and Grant Shapps are also on the list.