February 8th, 2018
Written By - Aurora Shi '18
The prospective withdraw of Brexit decided on June 23, 2016. Before Brexit officially comes into force on March 29th, 2019, there are some issues raised in both Britain and EU. Below is some
1). The EU citizenship: There are about three million EU citizens currently live in the U.K. Anyone who arrives before the Brexit day will have the rights to stay in the U.K. Meantime, the EU citizens will enjoy the rights like health care, social security, employment, education, as the other UK citizens. However, EU citizens are worried about their future circumstance in the UK because there is no certain clarification for these rights. There are also about one million UK citizens who live in EU region. For them, they will lose their residency in the UK if they stay outside the country for more than five years.
2). Northern Ireland: For people from the northern ireland, they will have the right to keep remain as EU citizen. People who are born in the Northern Ireland can have the rights to be either British citizen or Irish citizen or both. For those who have Irish citizen identity, they can choose to remain their EU citizenship.
3). Immigration: Particularly for EU citizens, it is possible that there immigration process will be the same as those non-EU people. It is likely that part of the reasons Brexit happened because of the overwhelming immigration from EU. The U.K. always has a substantial policy for immigration coming from non-EU region. However, half of U.K‘s immigration actually come from non-EU region, how UK will deal with the immigration from this part of the world at Brexit is debatable. Although there is no official policy issued (seems like it will come out close to the Brexit date), that the immigration rule towards people from EU will very possible to be stricter.
4). Options for Brexit: Hard or Soft. Before the Brexit formally taking effect, there are still options for the UK government to decide how this Brexit will look like. The hard Brexit means that the position of EU on trades, movements will be the same as the rest of the world who are non-EU. This is a complete quit from EU. Soft Brexit will still keep the UK and EU by a tied relationship, which the trade/corporation from the UK towards EU will have a different rule from other regions.
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