Leaving the European Union

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Tulip Siddiq]

I agree, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I will read a few of the words that the Prime Minister has said about the EU nationals living here. I repeat that 22,000 EU nationals live in Hampstead and Kilburn. The Prime Minister has repeatedly told the House and Members that even in the case of no deal, EU citizens will have their rights protected. However, to choose just one example, on page 28 of the agreement, article 15(3) states that the right of permanent residence can be lost if family or work obligations mean that someone has to leave the country for five years. As the3million says, EU citizens living in the UK will soon have to pay to apply to stay in their home, and will have to undergo systematic criminality checks.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

On that point, does the hon. Lady agree that it is ridiculous that some children born in this country to EU nationals from other parts of the EU who have been here for decades now have to apply to be British?

[Tulip Siddiq]

I agree that that is absolutely ridiculous. It also goes against all our British values of welcoming people.

In the Prime Minister’s CBI speech, EU migrants were told that they would lose their place in the queue for employment opportunities. We are at a pivotal point in our history. Do we want to become a Trumpian society in which we demonise migrants and do not make them feel welcome? Or do we want to go back to the British values of welcoming people to this country, as refugees or migrants, because of the contribution that they make to our country? Does what the Prime Minister has outlined sound like the protection of existing rights? My residents in Hampstead and Kilburn do not think so. I will illustrate my point with the example of two of the 22,000 EU nationals living there.

Sarit from Hampstead town is an EU doctor. In a year, he does 2,000 NHS surgeries. He said that Brexit is a threat to his work in the UK. I went through a very difficult childbirth two years ago on the NHS, and every single doctor, nurse and midwife who treated me was from the EU. There has been a 96% drop in the number of EU nurses applying to work in our NHS. Georgia, a Cypriot constituent, has lived in my constituency since 2003. She wrote to me of her fears about the new reticence of firms in Canary Wharf to hire EEA citizens.

The official Vote Leave statement said on 1 June 2016:

“There will be no change for EU citizens already lawfully resident”.

They

“will be treated no less favourably than they are at present”.

With that clearly no longer the case, we can add the betrayal of EU citizens’ rights to the long list of betrayals that have led to an undeniable shift in public opinion.

Hon. Friends have mentioned the people’s vote. A Sky News poll on 15 November asked whether voters would support or oppose a referendum to choose between the draft Brexit deal, no deal, or remain, and 55% were in support of a people’s vote. In a YouGov poll, 59% of respondents said that they now support a people’s vote. The change in opinion is clear, and as parliamentarians we have a duty to act on that change, and on the failure to achieve a deal.