We must have our say

Come on Urmstongran. We lived in Spain for 15 years and still paid tax in the UK as well as Spain. We also paid into the system all our working lives and one of the benefits of the EU was freedom of movement. Yes, the drop in the value of the pound affected our income but that is something you have to factor in if you live abroad

Free medicines etc was under the reciprocal health agreement and applies equally to the Spanish living here. The Spanish government have said they will honour that, deal or no deal. Most people paid towards prescription medicines, only those on the lowest get it free.

I was in Spain at the time of the referendum and voted to remain. I would have done the same if I lived here.

I have funded plenty of people's lifestyles during my working life with the taxes we as a couple have paid.

Be careful what you wish for Day6 a GE might very well result in a LidDem/Green alliance.

I know I've said it before but what alternative is there to a referendum on whatever deal can be obtained? I think we all agree the country is divided and it will continue to be if we are all worse off as a result of leaving. If we all get a chance to vote on any deal and leave still wins I think remainers would accept it as they would know it was a fair vote. At the moment there are a lot of people who didn't realise they would be so much worse off and have changed their minds. There are also a lot of people who think the referendum should stand. I think there is only one way to sort it out as both sides think they would win.

Nonnie If there were to be another referendum and leave won it I would certainly accept the result. We all, leavers and remainers, have so much more information now about what leaving the EU will entail and about the problems involved.

Framilode Yes, I think it is the only way to heal the country.

I wonder how people would feel if we had a GE and neither of the main parties won. I suspect there is quite a big swing to Libdems but only time will tell.

Just look at the two contenders for the Libdem leadership -Jo Swinson and Ed Davey are both so brilliant compared with the dreadful apologies for leaders of the Tory and Labour parties.

Yes another referendum or GE would hopefully sort it out. Can’t see how anyone would object to that apart from their view not prevailing.

A friend of ours who lives in France voted remain but said if he were living in the UK he'd have voted leave.

I agree with the view expressed by Framilode

A general election will, I think, polarise opinion. A big swing to the Lib Dems and a huge surge to the Brexit Party.

Urnstonegran just how far are you prepared to go in denying people their basic citizenship? "Ex pats", as you do quaintly call them, are British citizens living abroad. Why should they be treated in any way differently to citizens living in the UK.

Perhaps you think we should be "sending back" some of our citizens to somewhere outside the UK too. How do you actually define someone who should be single out for different treatment? And how far would you go when you stop calling them citizens and group them outside the citizenship you enjoy by renaming them.

Stop trying to be inflammatory GGmk and spouting hyperbolic nonsense by suggesting I would be sending anyone back to anywhere. People who retire abroad have been called ‘ex pats’ for years. They made a choice to live in a different country.

Whilst we are part of the EU reciprocal health arrangements are in place. However once we leave in a few weeks, all bets are off. Sterling has tanked at the moment so it won’t exchange for as many euros. That’s part of the ups and downs in these situations.

People on a state pension are going to be affected. In Australia and Canada (maybe everywhere apart from the EU ? I don’t know) pensions are frozen with no cost of living rises once the recipients have upped sticks.

I agree people who retired out there whilst we were EU members are how concerned how it will affect their circumstances. But as residents of the UK we as taxpayers here have to look to our needs first as we have chosen to live here.

Go abroad permanently by all means but don’t expect situations won’t change over time!

We never had a say when we were taken into the EU. Heath took us in without a vote in 1973. Wilson then had a referendum in 1975 and the usual scaremongering happened to make people afraid and the UK voted to stay in. That was before the Common Market morphed into the political entity it is today, rather than just the trading area we joined initially.

But as residents of the UK we as taxpayers here have to look to our needs first as we have chosen to live here

That says volumes about some Leavers' complete indifference to the way their vote has affected other people; people who didn't necessarily ask to be taken out of the EU.

Shameful...

No it doesn’t, not at all.

Urmston simply says ( quite rightly) that we who live in the UK have to think of ourselves first....first being the operative word.We do hope that British citizens living abroad will be granted the same rights continuing, as we are doing here for EU citizens.

Ooh now let me think about this.

There I was in the polling station on 23 June 2016. I’m wanting to vote to Leave.

Yet you think MaizieD I should stop and think ‘oh heck I ought not to use my one vote for what I want (even though I live in the U.K.) as it might affect all those others who decided to go and live abroad? Oh selfish me. I better not vote Leave. It’d be mean. You know what? I’ll put a cross right here, next to Remain so that all those nice people who chose to live abroad can rest easy’.

Yeah right.

Stop trying to be inflammatory GGmk and spouting hyperbolic nonsense by suggesting I would be sending anyone back to anywhere. Urmstongran Sat 20-Jul-19 14:49:40 ...

But as residents of the UK we as taxpayers here have to look to our needs first as we have chosen to live here. Urmstongran Sat 20-Jul-19 14:49:40

Urmston simply says ( quite rightly) that we who live in the UK have to think of ourselves first....first being the operative word. lemongrove Sat 20-Jul-19 19:45:57

During the first 13 years of my life, I lived abroad more than I lived in this country as, obviously, did my parents and you UG and Lemongrove are content to say that made me some sort of second-class citizen for that period. When I came back most of the young people I was at school with had parents working abroad so, according to your views that made their parents second-class citizens too.

I was not born in this country - my parents were working abroad at the time. Your rules would make them second-class citizens at that time. I do wonder how you would classify me - not being actually born here.

I don't think I need to fear you as individuals but straight after UG saying that I am trying to be inflammatory ... and spouting hyperbolic nonsense you both explain the new rules you believe in; the rules that start to separate out the outcasts from the Citizens. Many people agreed with this too the last time it happened - they called it looking after their own or the "New Order" (Neuordnung) thus finding of ways to declassify the citizenship of some groups.

No, I am not afraid or you knocking on my door but I am afraid of others who think like you.

GGM3
Far from saying anything at all about ‘second class citizens’
( where the ‘ell did that come from?!) I said I hoped that British citizens abroad would continue to have the same rights as the UK is guaranteeing to all EU citizens here.
But of course, when voting had to think of the UK and all who live here first.

If you are putting one group first, which you agreed with UG you should, you are logically putting another group second lemmongrove. You appeared to be doing just that. I am open to an explanation that shows this is not what Urmston simply says ( quite rightly) that we who live in the UK have to think of ourselves first. means.

There is a difference between putting all who live in the UK
first and calling British citizens in EU countries ‘second class citizens’. But you already know this.
Your own status, being born abroad to British parents who happened to be living and working abroad doesn’t even come into this, many British people were born abroad but you are still British, as are others.
All this hyperbolic talk of ‘outcasts’ and Nazi Germany should be kicked into touch.

You are talking like "Boris" lemongrass, and you appear to have picked up his superiority and twisting of the facts. You assume you are right even when it comes to my personally held views and you are suggesting I am saying something I know not to be true. You are, in fact, calling me a liar.

I can see your lack of imagination does not allow you to understand that finding ways to differentiate between groups of people who start with equal citizenship is a slippery slope to the division of those citizens. All citizens are currently equal unless you live abroad. For a leader who had the mind to do it this is a precedent to division. You may not see this but please do not suggest I am lying because I think that, having seen that a country could go down this route in the past, it is possible that in the right circumstances it could be done again and I feel those circumstances gathering over us. It is people who see the world as you do that I fear most.

Whatever.

A load of tosh GGMk2 if I may say so.
?
On this matter we shall have to agree to disagree.

could go down this route in the past, it is possible that in the right circumstances it could be done again

Could.
Possible.

Remain voters are ramping up their rhetoric now that we are certain to be Leaving.

Stop it. It’s part of the problem, not the solution, to talk this way.

These threads are like an opera with everyone singing their own part of the tune and hoping to sing louder than anyone else.
The referendum was not binding but an expression of public opinion - DC asked for the nation's advice and got a very mixed response.
Had it been intended to be binding it would have specified the percentage needed to secure a decision one way or the other. But it isn't likely that a second referendum now would produce a clearer result because so much anger and frustration has built up which hasn't much to do with the EU at all. The outlook seems very bleak to me.