Campaigners call on Britons to join expat rights lobby

British in Europe coalition (BiE) and the3million are calling on people concerned to lobby their UK MPs either in person on Wednesday next week in Westminster or remotely, using social media.

For full details and to register to take part see (for details see: britishineurope.org/mass-lobby-13th-sept/).

The event is not specifically ‘anti-Brexit’, but is aimed at asking MPs to help make sure expats on both sides retain full rights so they can continue living their lives in their chosen countries as before.

The organisers also want expat rights to be ‘ring-fenced’ off from the rest of the Brexit talks, so an agreement on them will stand even if there is no agreement on matters such as the ‘divorce bill’. They say Britons can take part even if they have lived out of the UK more than 15 years (and lost their parliamentary vote).

This comes also as the European Parliament is expected to launch a new resolution on expat rights when it meets in Strasbourg from September 11 to 14. This would complement a general Brexit resolution they passed in April which included passages calling for expat rights to be prioritised and for the EU to seek to mitigate the loss of EU citizenship rights by Britons.

The parliament’s chief Brexit coordinator, Guy Verhofstadt, has said he backs British expats retaining full future free movement rights across Europe as well as votes in local elections, positions which go further than the current negotiating stance of the EU (led by commissioner Michel Barnier).

The mass lobby is being timed to take place before the next rounds of official Brexit negotiations starting on September 18 and October 9 and before the European Council summit on October 19-20 when leaders will decide if enough progress has been made for a ‘second phase’ of talks to open to discuss the ‘future UK-EU relationship’ including trade.