The House of Lords has recently voted to amend the Brexit bill to
guarantee the right of EU nationals to remaining the UK continued
residency.
While some may say this is a good thing and the Lords are doing their job, let's actually stop and think about this.
If
the House of Lords is to do their job as a revising chamber properly,
why are they passing amendments supporting the rights of the EU citizens
in Europe to remain in Britain, but saying nothing about British
Citizens in EU?
In actual fact of course both sets of people should have their existing rights grandfathered.
So
why has this not been done? Well the EU does not wish to discuss
anything before Article 50 is triggered. They say they can not discuss
anything until then. This is sheer hypocrisy. If Donald Tusk and the
European Council were prepared to, they could easily come to an
agreement with the UK government to allow those people who already are
living across the forthcoming EU / UK to remain with grandfathered
rights in their current country of residence.
It is right and
proper that EU citizens in the UK should be allowed to stay post Brexit.
However this can only be guaranteed if the UK citizens elsewhere in the
EU have the same right. This could be sorted now if the EU were
prepared to discuss this now ahead of the main Brexit negotiations. They
won't do this for dogmatic reasons. It's the EU that is stopping a
clarification of expats status. This is an example of what's wrong with
the EU. They are more interested in their processes and dogma than real
people with their concerns. This just shows that we are right to leave.