UK on the path towards a closed society with ID cards for EU citizens
Date: 27 June 2017
Responding to the news of Theresa May’s proposal on the rights of EU citizens living in the UK after Brexit, Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, said:
“This is a sad day for the idea of migration as a positive thing based on rights. We believe another world is possible where everyone enjoys the freedom to settle in another country and contribute to that society, not just across the EU but anywhere in the world.
Today Theresa May has put Britain on a path to a more closed society of ID cards and family income checks for our own nearest neighbours, while continuing to treat the right to healthcare as a bargaining chip in the Brexit negotiations. Yet we have no doubt that migration’s time will come again – and we will fight to make it so.”
Michael Chessum, national organiser for Another Europe is Possible, said:
“These proposals are mean and dangerous – they confirm the government’s intention to use EU migrants as bargaining chips, and place restrictions on the rights of people who have lived in the UK for years and built a life here.
This policy has the potential to break apart families and to downgrade the rights of three million people up and down the country. Migrants are not bargaining chips, and there is a simple alternative: to unilaterally guarantee the rights of all European citizens to remain in the UK with their current rights.”
