NO special rights for EU citizens
EU citizens should not enjoy special rights to bring in family members after Brexit, Amber Rudd said yesterday.
Brussels is pushing for the rights of EU citizens to be guaranteed by the European Court of Justice in perpetuity – meaning that existing family reunion rights would be retained.
Tory Eurosceptics have warned that fixing their rights in this way could leave EU nationals with greater rights than those born in Britain if ministers decided to tighten immigration rules in future.
But the Home Secretary said she wanted to see the rights of EU nationals evolve in line with those of Britons after Brexit.
She added: ‘That is one of the elements that is still under final negotiations.
‘But my strong view is that UK citizens and EU citizens who have settled status here should have the same rights for bringing over their family or relatives from other countries. The principle is they’re now under UK law.
‘I met the Polish interior minister last week and I did not detect from him any concern about the fact that Poles who are staying in the UK once we have completed the interim period will have the same rights as UK citizens.’
Ministers are also pushing for an end to the system of paying millions of pounds in child benefit to the children of EU workers who do not live in this country.
The Government believes it is close to striking a deal with Brussels on the rights of the three million EU citizens in this country and the 1.3million Britons living in Europe. Miss Rudd dismissed reports that EU nationals will have to be fingerprinted when they apply for a new ‘settled status’ to stay in the UK.
She said the application would be streamlined to make it as simple as possible.
‘The default position for the three million is going to be, “You’re in, just fill in the form for us”, she said. ‘There will be no fingerprints. It will be biometric so there’ll be something like taking a picture of a photograph from your passport – which is a biometric picture – and downloading it.’
Miss Rudd said the application process would be ‘nothing like’ the existing 85-page form for people who want to stay in the UK, which was ‘ never designed for the three million’.
She added: ‘I genuinely feel it’s going to be revolutionary in terms of its simplicity – it’s going to be online, it’s going to be straightforward for people to access.’