Section:GDN 1J PaGe:6 Edition Date:190906 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 5/9/2019 18:34 cYanmaGentaYellowblac
- The Guardian Friday 6 September 2019
6 Letters
Brexit
In his fi rst statement as prime
minister, Boris Johnson gave
“unequivocally our guarantee to the
3.2 million EU nationals now living
and working among us ... that, under
this government, they will have the
absolute certainty for the right to
live and remain ”. In less than a day,
the prime minister’s spokesperson
rushed to clarify that this did not
mean new legislation would be
proposed. Instead Johnson would
maintain the EU Settlement Scheme.
As campaigners have pointed
out, the current scheme implies
that migrants who fail to apply
will lose their legal status and
residency rights. Figures suggest
at least 2 million EU nationals have
not applied for settled status yet.
In order to be given settled status,
migrants have to prove they have
lived in the UK for at least fi ve years.
To make matters worse, theStrategies and tactics
in the battle for Britain
Guarantee the legal status of
all EU migrants who live here
Thatcher’s
Britain
‘ Phil Hallsworth
of Shrewsbury
re thatching
a cottage in
Binfi eld Heath,
Oxfordshire. The
cottage is Grade
II-listed: because
it was built
around a central
brick chimney the
main structure is
reckoned to date
from about 1590 ’
ALAN GREELEY/
GUARDIAN COMMUNITY
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letters-picsWith recounts and other delays, we
may not know which party has the
most seats and who may be able to
form a government for some days.
In 2005 one constituency did not
declare the result until 36 hours after
the polls closed. In 2010 it took three
to four days to form a government.
Should no party get an overall
majority, who as prime minister
would attend the summit and what
authority would they have to take
part in the proceedings?
Brian Selby
Leeds- The last two days have shown
how our politicians just do not have
a way of coming to a clear outcome
on our relationship with Europe.
So it needs to go back to the people.
But via a general election or a
referendum? An election, with so
much internal disagreement within
the two main parties, is likely to
result in a hung parliament and so
will not resolve the matter.
So it needs to be a referendum.
Of course, referendums are not
good ways of making decisions
on complex issues. But this is the
mess that our inadequate system
of governance has brought us to.
Our current way of doing politics
isn’t working. It generates confusion
and acrimony. W e need a radical
sort-out of our democratic system.
Vicky Seddon
Sheffi eld - Jeremy Corbyn says he will back a
15 October election ( Corbyn urged to
resist snap poll and ‘let Tories stew’ ,
will not be aff ected in the event of
a no-deal Brexit.
Diane Abbott MP Shadow home
secretary, Alf Dubs Labour, House
of Lords , Kevin Courtney General
secretary, NEU , Mark Serwotka
General secretary, PCS , Sabby Dhalu
and Weyman Bennett Stand Up To
Racism , Mohammed Kozbar Muslim
Association of Britain , Rabbi Lee Wax
and 19 others (see gu.com/letters)- My Swedish wife of 60 years and
I are in a similar situation to your
correspondents ( Letters , 3 September)
who describe their diffi culties getting
settled status. My wife, who had a
severe stroke in 1998 , is unable to go
anywhere – as she would have to –
to renew her lapsed passport, and
my technological skills, needed to
make an application on her behalf,
are limited, to put it mildly. I imagine
there could be many elderly EU
nationals in the UK who face similar
problems. Could n’t the Home Offi ce
set up a helpline for such people?
Much worry could thus be avoided.
Richard Griffi ths
Syderstone, Norfolk
The euphoria over Boris Johnson’s
defeat on no deal is premature
( Cornered Johnson suff ers triple
Commons defeat , 5 September).
He has merely lost a trick, not the
game. There will be an election,
and Johnson’s strategy is still intact:
to monopolise the leave vote, and
trust the remain vote will be split.
Anti-n o-deal won on Tuesday
night only because the opposition
was united. If it can carry that unity
into an election, it will win again.
This means electoral pacts. Labour,
the SNP, Lib Dems and Greens are
very close on Brexit : all want a
new referendum. Comparing their
2017 manifestos shows that on
other issues of great importance- the NHS, crime, the economy,
immigration and defence – they are
not far apart.
A procedure for allocating seats
between parties can and should be a
mechanical matter. Party tribalism
has been overcome to block no deal.
It must not be a stumbling block in
a general election.
Willy McCourt
London - Once Hilary Benn’s bill receives
royal assent, will Boris Johnson
try to get a general election
on 15 October in the hope that
on 17 October he can go to the
European summit with a majority
in the House of Commons? Is this
logistically possible?
Voting would end at 10pm on the
15th. Counting would not start at
the earliest in some constituencies
until the early hours of the 16th.
Home Offi ce has brought forward
the deadline for applications from 30
June 2021 to 31 December 2020. This
is the perfect recipe for a repetition of
the Windrush generation scandal.
Islamophobic and racist comments
by Johnson and his support for
leaders such as Viktor Orbán suggest
that the likelihood of racist attacks
on migrant rights is high, as does
Johnson’s commitment to a points-
based immigration system.
Legislation should be passed
to guarantee the legal status of all
EU migrants who live here. At a
minimum the government must:
scrap the fi ve-year cap – every EU
national resident in the UK should
preserve all their current rights ;
re-establish the original deadline
advertised by the Home Offi ce to
apply for settled status ; and provide
real guarantees that the situation
of EU nationals living in Britain5 September ). But gifting Boris
Johnson a general election at a time
when he is doing well in the polls
( though God knows why) should not
be a priority of the opposition.
Wouldn’t a more sensible strategy
be to force a vote of no confi dence
and, assuming Johnson loses, go
to the Queen with a proposal for a
government of national unity, the
main point of which would be to set
up a new referendum to see where
the country sits in the light of all we
now know. They might also usefully
start an investigation into the
various illegalities of the previous
referendum. Only when that’s been
done should we consider granting
Boris his general election.
Prof Paul Booton
London- The pressure is now on Johnson.
If the no -deal bill gets royal assent
and with an election now on the
horizon because he cannot function
as a minority government, he knows
the Brexit party will wipe him out if
he has not left the EU by 31 October.
So he now absolutely has to get a
deal to stay in power. I’m surprised
the expert commentators are not
making this point.
Richard Bryant-Jeff eries
Epsom, Surrey - Under the Fixed-term Parliaments
Act it seems that if the p rime
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letters-termsPoliticians can’t reach
a clear outcome on
our relationship with
Europe. So it needs to
go back to the peopleVicky Seddon- I came to the UK 17 years ago with
two children aged eight and nine.
They are more British than French,
having gone through the British
education system from primary
school to university. Yet none of
them has been granted settled
status. The eldest, in Australia
and with another 18 months left
travelling, has not been able to apply
for settled status and will not meet
the deadline of December 2020. The
youngest works in London but has
only been granted pre-settled status
as he could not provide proof of fi ve
years of wages – he is now trying to
justify his status with student loan
documentation etc.
My husband is British, but that
does not come into account. The
family is being torn apart. I have
always worked and contributed in
this country; I volunteer for local
associations but now feel like a
second-class citizen. A pplying for
citizenship would have been an
option if the cost wasn’t ex orbitant
and therefore out of reach.
Emanuele Maindron
Ashford, Kent- I am very sympathetic to EU
nationals facing the great and absurd
diffi culties of obtaining settlement
status now. Without taking anything
away from what EU nationals are
suff ering, let’s also pay attention to
the fact that is not an easy process for
any foreign national in this country.
Whil e EU nationals pay £65 per
person for settlement, non-EU
nationals have to pay at least £2,389
for indefi nite leave to remain (ILR),
which is equivalent to settlement.
Add to this the visa fees required
in the fi ve-year period leading up
to ILR, as well as the mandatory
extra fee for the NHS – which is
double taxation, as we make NHS
contributions from our pay cheque
already – and over the course of
fi ve years a family of four has to pay
about £30,000 to live and work in this
country. The visas are mandatory,
as is obtaining ILR. Otherwise we
couldn’t stay here.
The question post-Brexit is
whether EU nationals will also face
the same fee structure that non-EU
nationals have been facing recently.
Name and address supplied
- I am very sympathetic to EU
minister wishes to call a general
election his only option might be
to propose a no - confi dence vote in
his own government – in the Alice in
Wonderland political world in which
he operates it seems to be the logical
conclusion of the position that he
has now got us to.
Nick Roberts
Birmingham- Opposition parties should not
allow Boris Johnson to hustle them
into a snap general election. The 21
Conservatives who had the whip
withdrawn for voting against him
on Tuesday night have the ability
to form an alternative government.
If all opposition members supported
them, they could manage a deal
with the EU before 31 October.
John Pelling
Coddenham, Suff olk - You report ( 5 September ) that
more than 100,000 people registered
to vote within 48 hours.
This early surge is the just the tip
of the iceberg of applications that
electoral offi cials will receive once
an election is called. On the deadline
day before the 2017 general election
alone 612,543 applied.
Troublingly for British
democracy, the last -minute nature
of electoral registration will put huge
pressures on local authorities. Many
are cash-strapped, wading through
thousands of duplicate registrations,
working to Victorian practices.
Citizens, meanwhile, have no way
to check whether they are already
registered and millions are missing
from the roll. Last month’s Missing
Millions Still Missing report sets
out a vision for reforming electoral
registration that should be taken
forward by the next government
so that we have a robust system.
Professor Toby James
University of East Anglia
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