End of free movement after Brexit is a disaster for families

The Guardian editorial (19 August) on the cruelty of the impact of Brexit on EU nationals’ rights in Britain, and British nationals’ rights in the EU, comes as close as I’ve seen anywhere to explaining the impact of having to apply for rights you already thought you had.

I am British, my husband is Danish and we have benefited from the right to freedom of movement since the treaty of Maastricht made it possible in 1992; we have been able to live and work in each other’s country of birth and travel freely between them ever since. In fact we were living in Denmark when the Danes were forced to hold a second referendum on signing off on that treaty in 1993. Oh, the irony.

Our experience of negotiating the requirements for my husband’s continued right to remain in the UK have been stressful; as a partner in a global company, living and working in London and fulfilling all the required criteria, he imagined he would automatically be granted “settled” status. He was not. Dumbfounded, we were forced to provide a massive amount of documentation to further prove his right to remain here in the UK. Left in limbo for far too long, and facing the increasingly uncertain future of a no-deal Brexit as espoused by government ministers (EU citizens believe they are just bargaining chips, 20 August), the settled decision came too late to change our decision to move to Denmark.

My entire family voted for Brexit but now argue that they did not know what they were voting for, and given the choice would change their votes. One of the many things they did not foresee was that we, their own family members, would have to leave the country in order to secure a future free from uncertainty and the whims of government ministers.
Deborah Offen
Sidcup, Kent

• You report that Priti Patel “wants free movement to end on the dot of 31 October” (Tory divisions over Brexit deepen amid row over no-deal dossier leak, 19 August). What form will this take? How will overworked border staff distinguish between resident EU citizens eligible for settled status but not yet registered and other EU citizens? Let us remember that EU citizens have until 31 December 2020 to register, and so far less than a third have done so. The Federation of Poles, in a letter to Boris Johnson this month, pointed out that barely 17% of resident Poles, the largest single EU national group in this country, had registered. This is simultaneously an administrative disaster for border staff and passengers, and potentially a gross betrayal of promises to Polish and other EU residents from Boris Johnson that their pre-Brexit status will be respected.
Wiktor Moszczynski
Trustee, Federation of Poles in Great Britain

• Monday marked the 30th anniversary of the first breach of the iron curtain (How a cross-border picnic paved the way for the lifting of the iron curtain, 19 August). Broadcasters reminded us of the joy and emotion as those involved began to claim their right to freedom. Doubly chilling then that the Johnson government proclaims now its intention to close UK borders to EU nationals with immediate effect on 1 November. Shame on us.
Jane Lee
Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey

• It is grotesque to hear Boris Johnson referring to EU leaders as “friends and partners” (EU unconvinced as Johnson sets out fresh bid to remove Brexit backstop, 20 August). This is a man who built his career on fabricating stories about the meddling and interfering of “Eurocrats”, who lied repeatedly about Turkey joining the EU and about Britain’s financial contribution to the union’s budget, and who in 2016 compared the union to Hitler. He also displayed colossal ignorance and crass insensitivity in comparing the Northern Irish border to that between Camden and Islington. If any normal person treated friends and partners in this way, they would soon be marooned in isolation. It is astonishing, worrying and utterly depressing that almost half of voters, according to YouGov, would prefer Johnson’s no-deal Brexit than entertain a Corbyn-led interim administration designed to avoid that outcome.
Dr Simon Sweeney
University of York

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