The EU fears millions of its nationals living in the UK will be left stranded in a legal no man’s land after the country leaves the EU because of the weaknesses of the British immigration system, a document obtained by the Observer reveals.
MEPs and senior European diplomats fear that chaos will ensue as the Home Office does not have the information or systems in place to select who can stay, once the UK restricts access to nationals from the other 27 EU member states. It is widely assumed that, at an early stage of the article 50 negotiations, Britain and the EU will agree a cut-off date after which foreigners who have settled in the country will not have an automatic right to remain.
But a leaked document, drawn up by MEPs on the European parliament’s employment committee to aid the EU’s Brexit negotiations, warns: “The UK has no population register. In practice it would be difficult to determine which EU27 citizens were residing legally in the UK before the Brexit would have taken effect.
“If all 3.3 million EU citizens were to initiate procedures aimed at proving the ‘exercise of treaty rights’ the administrative system would be overburdened.”
An Opinium poll for the Observer published today finds that a large majority of Britons believe EU nationals living in the UK should be given the automatic right to stay. Just 5% said they should be asked to leave, but eight months after last June’s referendum, uncertainty about the future has become a source of deep anxiety among European citizens living in the UK. [...]
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