Labour will unilaterally protect EU citizens rights

[Suff]

Great. Now let's see. Labour was voted in to represent the interests and needs of the UK citizens. So Labour is going to guarantee the rights of 3 million EU, citizens, the rights of their family to join them and this right is for life. The EU, on the other hand has refused to even _talk_ about the rights of the 1 million British citizens in the EU.

It is the EU who is talking about punishment. It is the EU who is talking about forcing the UK to back down. The EU will not give those same rights to UK citizens without significant concessions from the UK.

May, on the other hand, has clearly said that the second the EU guarantees (in writing), the rights of the UK citizens in the EU, the UK will immediately guarantee the same rights for the EU citizens in the UK. This, of course, is not a very good deal for the UK but it is significantly better than the position Labour is taking.

I must admit, locally, there are many people who still had a vote and used it to vote Remain. I do hope one of them talks to me about how they're going to vote in this election because when they mention either Labour or Lib Dem, I'm going to have a really good chuckle as I remind them that both the Lib Dems and Labour are going to sell their rights away without a thought for them, all to make some political statement. Personally I would have expected nothing less.

And here is one other salient though on that. Those 3 million EU citizens don't have a vote. So both Labour and the Lib Dems are going to bat for people who have no vote and are not citizens of the EU, whilst hanging the UK citizens who do have a vote out to dry.

Never has the phrase "stupid is as stupid does" sounded more apt to me.

I wonder if the Tories will take on board the best response to that little bit of stupidity? Simply "and how are you going to protect the rights of the 1 million UK citizens in the EU???".

Personally we have been working on this for years now as I have seen the writing on the wall for years. I have even learned to speak quite a lot of French and am seen as a valued member of the French community, even though I spent 3 years in school learning 5 words of French and arrived here in 2002 with no French at all. Languages are not my forte, machines or computers? Yes. Languages? Not a chance.

It is a long time since I said that we might as well get on with leaving the EU. Given that we were never going to join the Euro or Schengen and that these two fundamentals were what the EU Were all about. I knew that eventually the UK would be forced to make this decision because those two realities, which almost everyone else in the EU lives, were getting further away from fulfilment in the UK, not nearer.

So from my perspective of knowing that the UK would eventually leave the EU, some 5 years or so in advance, I must admit the complete naivety being shown by both Labour and the Lib Dems is, in a word, Breathtaking.

I shall listen to their idiotic reasoning with some humour over the next 7 weeks.

[TheOstrich]

I saw that on the lunchtime news. If there was any possibility that I might have voted Labour, which quite frankly there wasn't anyway, I certainly wouldn't be voting for them now. To actively favour EU citizens over your own people is breathtakingly astonishing.

It's my view that if EU citizens living and working in the UK wish to remain after Brexit and obtain the same rights and benefits as UK folk, well, they should apply for UK citizenship, as a former work colleague of mine's Romanian spouse has done.

I am also unhappy about Theresa May "guaranteeing the same rights" for EU citizens in the UK if the EU "guarantees the rights" for UK citizens in the EU, the "quid pro quo" stance, because I have seen it said that the ECJ will want to be in charge of and dictate those rights which EU citizens in the UK will receive - long-term. To have the EU dictating those rights is totally unacceptable to me.

[Workingman]

It is an impasse and it will have to be broken somehow. Whether that is Labour's unilateral move or May's 'you go first and I will follow' stance, or the same from the EU, makes little difference.

The bottom line is that the UK is not going to kick out all EU citizens living here and nor is the EU going to kick out all UK citizens living there. The most likely outcome is that during the Brexit negotiations both sides will promise not to act precipitously. The current situation is, after all, beneficial to both sides.

[Suff]

I'm not so sure WM, the hard right in France and other EU countries are demanding that the UK citizens take the citizenship of the country they are in and give up citizenship to their home country.

I'm with Ossie on the whole ECJ thing. If we choose to keep the EU citizens rights, it will be UK rights not EU rights guaranteed by the ECJ. Anything else would make a mockery of the stated aim of Brexit. If the EU wants to guarantee the UK citizens under the ECJ that is, of course, their right.

In the end some fudge will be done but Labour's stance (and also the Lab Dim's), is complete idiocy.

[Workingman]

Anything else would make a mockery of the stated aim of Brexit.

What stated aim? The one people voted for on the ballot paper, Leave: Go away from a place, leave behind, depart from, remove oneself from an association with or participation in (something). That aim?

If we had that there would be no negotiations, they would not be necessary, but we do not. We have various 'flavours' of Leave, and because of that we are entering into negotiations, part of which are citizen's rights.

Neither side is going to get 100% of what it wants, and both sides know it. May is out for the best deal for Britain and the British, whatever that is and wherever they are, and the EU negotiators will be out for the best deal for citizens of the EU. Those are what the negotiations will be about. There will be give and take on both sides and what is given will not be universally liked on the side doing the giving - tough.

For me labour's opening gambit works better than May's 'Red Line'. It offers the opportunity to be more forceful, again and again if necessary, if the EU will not reciprocate, whereas a 'Red Line' offers no way out if both sides dig their heels in and go nose-to-nose.

[cromwell]

It's all academic anyway. Unless the polls are even more wrong than usual anything Labour promise is irrelevant, because they aren't going to win.

[Suff]

For me labour's opening gambit works better than May's 'Red Line'.

Well for me it doesn't. Because you have to trust those petulant, frightened, children in Brussels to do the right thing. Rather than having a major strop and shooting themselves in the foot.

For me only a firm hand works. Just like with Children.

[Workingman]

Cromwell, I do agree, it is largely academic, but keeping it in that context, which is best from a negotiating POV, because that is what we are supposed to be doing?

Is it the 'red line' we will not do this unless you do the other best, or does the open offer with a view to pulling back work better?

I find all this 'my dad is bigger than your dad' or 'you need us more than we need you' primary playground stuff pathetic. It is pointless, absolutely pointless, and helps nobody.

[Workingman]

For me labour's opening gambit works better than May's 'Red Line'.

Well for me it doesn't. Because you have to trust those petulant, frightened, children in Brussels to do the right thing. Rather than having a major strop and shooting themselves in the foot.

For me only a firm hand works. Just like with Children.

Sorry. Suff, but that is just the sort of language/attitude that is unhelpful. If I am sat across the table supposedly negotiating a deal and the other side has that attitude I am going to come back with the same - in spades. Nobody wins, we both lose. Do we want that? I don't. I now want Brexit, even though I voted Remain, but I also want to work with the EU on an agreed set of rules.

[AliasAggers]

I now want Brexit, even though I voted Remain.

That's interesting, Frank. What made you change your mind?