Please Don't Take my Sunshine Away

I could maunder on for hours about Brexit - ugh: horrible word! - and what a disaster it is; but it'd achieve nothing.  (Actually, I might post something later.  Brace yourselves.)

Of course, achieving nothing is the lot of just about everyone, if we're being completely honest.  But, all the same, I've taken it into my head to write to some important people in the hope - the vanishingly small hope - that we won't lose everything good from the debacle of the referendum.  Please do feel free to copy and use this as a template for your own letters if you think it's any good.  I've embedded the email addresses of recipients behind their names.  For UK Ministers, I've used their ministerial email address, rather than their Parliamentary one.  The exception to this is for David Cameron, who doesn't seem to have a ministerial email address that I can find; I've had to use his Parliamentary one.  But I'm planning to send paper copies to the MPs in addition to the email anyway.

Obviously, I'm going to use my real name when I send it.  I'm not thick.  You should do the same.  You're not thick either.

*     *     *     *     *

Mr Juncker –

Thursday’s referendum on the United Kingdom’s continued membership of the European Union has already had severe repercussions around the world.  At the time I write this, it is unclear when (or indeed whether) the UK will invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and thereby begin the formal process of leaving the EU: the referendum is not legally binding, after all; but whatever happens in the coming months and years, it is clear that there will be huge changes in the political landscape of the continent.

However, it is also true that very nearly half of the electorate voted to stay within the EU; and a good portion of that half is positively enthusiastic about continued UK membership of the EU.  To them – to us – the outcome, and the prospect of leaving the Union, is nothing short of a disaster.

One of the reasons for this is economic.  Yet, though the economic consequences of “Brexit” are likely to be severe, they may also be transient in the medium-to-long term, and it is the job of politicians and central bankers to manage them.  But there are other reasons for Europhile gloom: notably, UK membership of the EU represents an outward-looking, cosmopolitan, and optimistic attitude.  This is not something that can be managed politically.

I am currently a citizen of the United Kingdom, but also a citizen of the European Union.  This European citizenship means a great deal to me and to millions like me precisely because of the symbolic status of the EU.  The prospect of losing that European citizenship feels like being disinherited.

With this in mind, I would like to ask whether, in the course of whatever negotiations occur in the next few years, some way could be found for those UK citizens who wish to keep European citizenship to do so, perhaps as dual citizens.  Is there any chance at all that we might be able to retain a European passport, and the rights that we currently have across all member states?

It is worth noting in passing that citizenship of the EU was established under Article 8 of the Maastricht Treaty, according to which:

1. Citizenship of the Union is hereby established.
Every person holding the nationality of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union.
2. Citizens of the Union shall enjoy the rights conferred by this Treaty and shall be subject to the duties imposed thereby.

Thus everyone who is a citizen of a member state of the EU is also a citizen of the EU; and anyone who is a citizen of a state that accedes to the Union becomes a citizen of the EU as a matter of course.  This is confirmed by Article 9 of the Lisbon Treaty, which also makes it clear that

[e]very national of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union. Citizenship of the Union shall be additional to and not replace national citizenship.

Citizenship of a member state, on this basis, would appear to be a sufficient rather than a necessary condition of holding EU citizenship.  Under Article 50 (3) of the Lisbon Treaty,

[t]he Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.

Clearly, there is no provision for people who are born in, or become citizens of, ex-member states of the European Union to be granted EU citizenship, any more than there is or should be for citizens of states that are not and have never been members.  However, neither is there any provision by which citizenship, once granted, may be withdrawn from EU citizens once conferred.  This is a very different matter, and I would suggest that summarily removing citizenship from tens of millions of people may not set the most happy precedent.

It is my deepest hope that the UK’s departure from the EU can still be avoided somehow, and that if it cannot, the door to rejoining the club will not be closed to us forever.  (On this, I cling to Article 50 (5) of the Lisbon Treaty, as do many others.)  In the meantime, a great many UK citizens do think of themselves as European, and are horrified at the prospect of having that taken from us for even a comparatively short period.  If there is any way that we can maintain a European citizenship that we have come to regard as our birthright, it would surely be embraced.

Sincerely

Enzyme

cc The Rt Hon David Cameron MP, Prime Minister;

The Rt Hon Theresa May MP, Secretary of State for the Home Department;

The Rt Hon Philip Hammond MP, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs;

The Rt Hon David Lidington MP, Minister of State for Europe;

Frans Timmermans, First Vice President of the European Commission;

Federica Mogherini, Vice President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy;

Marianne Thyssen, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills, and Labour Mobility;

Johannes Hahn, Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy;
Dimitris Avramopoulos, Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship