‘EU citizenship cannot be lost’
ALEADING pro-EU campaigner who has collaborated with Plaid Cymru is planning a legal case to establish that British citizens will not lose their right to freedom of movement within the EU when Brexit is done.
Professor Joshua Silver, of Oxford University, said he had received legal advice that there was no legal mechanism to remove EU citizenship rights from residents of a member state that was leaving the EU.
He said: “I am now working with a group of expert lawyers toward asking the European Court of Justice to rule that EU citizenship is a permanent status, and we believe this will probably become a very significant development, though it may take some time to get our ruling.
“A key challenge now is to get the whole public to understand that neither Johnson, nor indeed all the EU politicians and/or civil servants, have any legal power to ‘remove’ our EU citizenship and rights, so I am trying to take the steps needed to do that.
“One simple first way seems to be to make people aware of our website, eucitizenship.org.uk, and encourage them to register. I would then like to work toward a situation where every registrant’s voice can be heard, probably by beginning a process in the
Court of Justice as a class action. It is possible that this class could actually grow to tens of millions of UK citizens, since research suggests that over 50% of the population really value their EU citizenship.”
Prof Silver’s group has already signed up more than 139,000 supporters on its website.
The UK Government insists that freedom of movement for UK citizens not already living in EU countries will end on December 31, 2020.”
A statement on the official website www.gov.uk says: “You can still move to another EU country, on the same terms as before January 31, 2020, until the transition period ends on December 31, 2020. You will have until at least June 30, 2021 to apply for a residence status in that country, if you need to.
“There will be no changes to the rules on travel until December 31, 2020.”