The flaw in Mrs May’s policy that will split families
There is one big flaw in Theresa May’s announcement on eU/UK residency rights: her proposal won’t work.
While attention has been focused on the rights, post-Brexit, of the 3.2 million eU citizens living in the UK and 1.2 million British citizens in the eU, there is a much smaller but equally ‘threatened’ group.
They are the spouses and other immediate family members of the above two groups who are non-eU citizens and derive their residency rights solely from a family tie with an eU citizen in the UK or British citizen in the eU.
For example, imagine a British citizen living in the eU with their non-eU-citizen spouse (like me, in France with my Nigerian wife).
he is given reciprocity of residency in the eU under Mrs May’s plan and remains there until he decides to retire in six or seven years’ time, when he is 66 or 67. he then returns to the UK to spend his final decades there (as I intend to do in 2023-2024).
But by then Britain will have left the eU and he is now subject (as all entering the UK will be) to British immigration law, with its requirement of a minimum income of £18,000 per annum.
As he is retired and on a UK state pension (plus a small private pension), he now doesn’t satisfy that income requirement (which by then could be about £25,000 as it rises every year), so his spouse cannot enter the UK with him.
Yet she can’t stay put, as he has now left the eU state in which he resided; she can no longer lawfully reside there without him, as her rights were derived from his.
As it is, Mrs May’s scheme split up families. She needs to amend it to correspond with what the eU has proposed, to give such spouses rights for life.
RichaRd Loweth, Leicester.
Rate must rise
YoUr City editor Alex Brummer is right — it’s time for an increase in interest rates (Mail).
While a policy of low rates and quantitative easing was needed after the 2008 crash, it has continued for too long, encouraging lenders to offer ever cheaper loans and mortgages. This has led to unsustainable levels of personal debt and higher inflation.
one of the main causes of the credit crash was that too much cheap money was in circulation. Control of the money supply is vital, and the surest way to achieve this is via the bank rate.
Gradual rises would be far better than a sudden sharp increase later on. The U.S. Federal reserve knows this and is restoring rates to normality. The Bank of england should follow suit.
david MoRgan, Shrewsbury.
Slump in sight
The Fraser of Allander Institute has confirmed what was blatantly obvious – that Scotland has been stuck in a weak cycle of growth since long before the slump in North Sea oil production and Brexit was even a twinkle in David Cameron’s eye.
The blame cannot be laid at the door of anyone other than the present Scottish Government.
The First Minister must now accept the simple truth about the sluggish economy. We are trailing so far behind the rest of the UK because of the uncertainty in the business sector caused by her obsession with Indyref 2.
The SNP ship is sinking fast and dragging Scotland down with it. eLizabeth coRbett zok,
Stepps, Lanarkshire.
Birth damage
FUrTher to the letter about the obstetrician who delivered a child by breaking the collar bone (Mail), Trixie Foster had shoulder dystocia, where the baby’s shoulders become stuck on the mother’s pelvic bone.
In 1979, when Mrs Foster had her baby, she was indeed lucky that her obstetrician had been on a posting in Malaysia and learned how to do this and avoid a much more serious injury.
I am chairman of the erb’s Palsy Group, a national organisation supporting those who have had a similar birth, but for whom the outcome is more severe, and they usually suffer lifelong paralysis to the shoulder, arm and hand.
We train obstetric and midwifery staff in the best practice manoeuvres to safely deliver the baby without causing permanent damage. Some babies are still delivered by having their clavicle broken to assist delivery but for the most part we train staff in less invasive methods.
kaRen hiLLyeR, erb’s Palsy group, coventry.
Acceptable behaviour
WITh the completion of the aircraft carrier, hMS Queen elizabeth, at rosyth, a project which is one of the greatest engineering projects ever undertaken by thousands of Scottish workers, one might have expected the First Minister to have marked this achievement with some form of official praise and recognition.
Not so it seems, because, yet again, our Scottish Government seems to have little grasp on what is appropriate and what is not.
I don’t suppose any of us should be surprised by this. This is the same First Minister who prioritised tweeting about her kitchen and attending a Cosla meeting over paying respects to our fallen soldiers at a Service of Commemoration in London in 2015.
We can only hope that Scotland will soon be governed by a First Minister with sufficient nous to know instinctively what is acceptable behaviour without relying on highly paid ‘special advisers’ who seem to have little grasp of what sort of representation the Scottish electorate want. each and every one of us deserves better.
a MoRRiSon, dyce, aberdeenshire.
Politics of hatred
I WAS amazed to read about the ‘brilliance’ of Jeremy Corbyn at the Glastonbury Festival.
My friends and I were waiting for the Kaiser Chiefs to play on The other Stage when the Labour leader appeared on the huge screens in our arena and we were subjected to a 15-minute tirade.
We were not asked whether we wanted to hear him speak and were unable to block out his words. his chosen subject was essentially that successful and wealthy people are responsible for the ills of the world.
This is the politics of hatred. There was no rapturous applause from the 60,000 spectators, who cheered only when the Kaiser Chiefs arrived to rescue us.
Shame on Glastonbury founder Michael eavis for subjecting us to this, and on the BBC for so misreporting the reaction to Corbyn’s appearance. david weRnick,
wickford, essex.