Tuesday Brexit news

When I am on the road, keeping up to date with all things Brexit is difficult, as hours go by and so I miss the latest lies and smoke and mirrors from the Brexiteers.

But the main news is that it seems the UK Home Office has a plan for registering EU citizens post-Brexit, and that is to do it alphabetically. Amazing that no one has thought of this. Although this might change, and might be done regionally, or sectorally, or richest to poorest, which is the most likely tbh.

This will involve setting up the kind of system that the rest of the EU already has and complies with EU rules, but the UK rejected because of costs. And then when someone suggested it was out of control, something that could then be blamed on the EU. A perfect plan, only forgetting EU citizens have a positive financial impact on the UK economy; they pay taxes, NI costs and work doing the jobs we don’t like to.

But best pander to the UKIP and Brexiteer headbangers.

And what is done to EU citizens in the UK will be done to UK citizens living in the EU, and those UK citizens who were told Brexit would have no effect on them, and were denied a vote. Set to lose many of the rights they thought they had for life. Citizens of the EU and UK who are married to someone from the “other side” are in Limbo, as moving to where their partner lives might not be possible, or returning to a country not their home might mean they had not lived there enough to qualify, meaning the family might be split up.

This is a direct result of Brexit xenophobic rhetoric and its effect on real people living real lives.

A conversation was hear in Washington yesterday, in which a UK diplomat suggested that the UK was going to be asking for an extension to the A50 period.

Although this is fine in theory, but the reality means that if the A50 is extended beyond the end of May 2019, then EU elections will have to take place, and UK will have to contribute to the EU budget for 5 years, and any MEPs elected would sit for 5 years. This is a situation that neither the EU or UK wants, but of course it is unavoidable if a cliff edge fall in UK exports to the EU is not to happen.