Reform UK’s announcement that it would remove benefits from EU migrants in the UK with settled status, and that it is willing to let the EU apply the same measures to British migrants living in the EU, has caused deep concern.
There has been a lot of talk in the media about possible ‘retaliation’ by the EU, which is now causing anxiety and worry among UK citizens living in the EU. As Vice Chair of Bremain in Spain, sadly, my colleagues and I have been here before.
Another populist policy from Reform
This is yet another populist, fantasy policy from Reform UK. Designed to create a wedge issue, stir up resentment, and frighten people who have already had far too much uncertainty imposed on their lives by Brexit.
British nationals who resided in the EU or UK prior to 31 December 2020 have their rights and status protected under the Withdrawal Agreement. It is a legally binding agreement between the UK and the EU that was meant to give us certainty in our status and legal protections for life. Yet, a decade on, here we are again. We still see the lives and futures of our fellow EU citizens in the UK, and ours, threatened by British politicians seeking to use them as political bargaining chips.
How would the EU react?
Firstly, the EU is bound by the Withdrawal Agreement and cannot simply disregard its obligations in response to a unilateral UK policy. The Withdrawal Agreement protects the rights of people within its scope, including important social-security and equal-treatment rights. Those rights cannot simply be swept aside by a UK government announcing a new policy. Reform has itself acknowledged that implementing its proposals would require changes to the Brexit arrangements. It’s almost unthinkable that the EU would agree to open negotiations to strip its own citizens of protections already agreed in law.
If a future Reform government attempted to disregard these obligations, the EU would follow procedure. It has legal and political mechanisms available to challenge the UK. That could mean formal dispute procedures, fines and legal action, or it could use trade as a retaliation. But any response from the EU would have to operate within the framework of international law and the agreements between the two sides; it would not simply be a case of the EU arbitrarily deciding to ‘take benefits away’ from British citizens.
But there is a more important point here.
People are frightened.
Since the Brexit referendum in 2016, successive UK politicians and, on occasion, our own governments have used our fellow EU migrants, and us, as political footballs. EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens living in the EU were promised that our rights would be protected, only to have those rights repeatedly dragged into the political debate.
And now, years after Brexit ‘being done,’ Reform UK is once again putting those same people in the firing line in pursuit of a headline and a wedge issue.
Whatever your views on immigration or welfare, people who built their lives in another country should not be used as bargaining chips in a political game; Reform UK’s willingness to remove rights from British nationals abroad should warn everyone, including our fellow Britons in the UK. If our rights mean nothing to them, neither will yours.
The only way both EU migrants in the UK and British migrants in the EU can ever feel completely secure in their status is if the UK joins the EU as a full member and we all become EU citizens once again.
We deserve better than this.
Lisa Burton
Vice-Chair
Bremain in Spain
