At 11 pm London time on March 29th, 2019, the UK will formally cease to be a member of the European Union. At the present time, both sides are working towards creating an agreement that will spell out the specifics of the divorce, but the results so far haven’t been encouraging.
That has caused experts far and wide to issue dire warnings regarding the consequences of failing to forge an agreement in time, and a growing chorus of businesses are beginning to question their long-term plans over the growing uncertainty.
There is, however, a specific group of people that have more reason to fear a no-deal Brexit than most, owing to the fact that they have the most to lose in that scenario. It’s the estimated 2.9 million EU citizens that are currently living and working in the UK, whose livelihoods and very right to remain in the country are very much in doubt. For them, each passing day brings new anxiety over what, if anything, they should be doing to prepare for the looming deadline.
So far, the British government has been giving every indication that they intend to allow most, if not all, EU citizens currently residing in the UK to remain. To that end, they’ve announced plans for an online system whereby EU citizens may seek settled status by answering three simple questions via an online application system. That system is set to enter a limited trial run beginning on the 28th of August in a bid to ready it for the onslaught of applications it’s likely to face when opened to the public.
The scheme can’t come soon enough for EU expatriates living in the UK, who will need to decide pretty quickly if the offer is reliable enough to warrant putting down permanent roots in their adopted country. Those that opt to stay have gotten a bit of good news recently, too, as home prices in London have started to fall for the first time in years. On top of that, The Bank of England has signaled that they have no plans to further increase interest rates until at least 2019, and a glance at Habito’s mortgage compare tool reveals that this might be the best (and last) chance for some EU citizens living in the UK to purchase a permanent home in the country.
Of course, as with most complex legal frameworks, the devil is in the details. The settled status program requires EU citizens to have been living lawfully in the UK for at least five years at the time of application. The problem, however, is that the British government has yet to clarify what the term “living lawfully” means. Judging by the UK’s current immigration laws, it seems likely that EU citizens will have to demonstrate that they possess comprehensive sickness insurance and that they have been self-sufficient for their whole five-year residency to qualify for settled status.
If that is the legal definition that is used, it is far from clear that EU citizens that function as live-in caregivers will be allowed to stay, nor does it guarantee that even those married to British nationals will qualify for settled status. With that level of uncertainty and no real clarification from the British government, many of the EU citizens currently living in the UK remain in limbo ? unable to make an informed decision on their future plans.
For now, the Brexit clock continues to count down to an uncertain future, not only for the UK and the EU but for the millions of European citizens living in the UK. At the same time, net migration from the EU to the UK continues to fall as we come closer and closer to the 2019 deadline. It’s still too soon to tell how the Brexit story is going to end, but so far, there doesn’t seem to be any reason for anyone ? on either side ? to celebrate.
