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Another Election
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Littlestone
Littlestone
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Edited Apr 29, 2017, 11:04
Re: Another Election
Apr 29, 2017, 10:38
Hi John

John Rice wrote:
"what exactly are the benefits of belonging to the EU?"

Well, as an EU citizen you have the right to live and work in any one of 28 (now 27) nations and still retain all of the same rights as you would in your home country. To me -- as someone who has lived and worked in 5 EU nations -- that's a *massive* benefit.

I may be doing you a disservice, but I suspect you actually meant "what are the benefits to me personally?"


I heard a young lady (20s?) on the radio recently saying she voted Remain because, by leaving the EU, she thought it would cost her more to use her mobile phone while roaming there. :-) Now that’s obviously a disadvantage for her (having to pay more in mobile phone charges) but hardly a good enough reason to vote Remain. As an EU citizen we do indeed, “...have the right to live and work in any one of 28 (now 27) nations and still retain all of the same rights as you would in your home country.” With that, of course, comes the right of any EU citizen to have the same rights here in the UK. We have to ask ourselves if the trade off is a good one. For you of course it obviously is, but for the majority of people in the UK? I doubt it. For UK citizens who just take vacations on the continent, perhaps have second homes there, or just visit occasionally for sports events etc, they probably hardly give the rights issue a second thought.

You know, I can remember a time (1973) before the UK joined the European Economic Community, when freedom of movement across most of Europe was a given and all that you needed was your passport. Of course we didn’t have the rights you mention but most people didn’t need them... and still don’t. We certainly didn’t need a visa and the idea put out by some that we might need a visa after Brexit is blatant scaremongering. Unlike you I haven’t worked in Europe but I did study and work abroad for some seventeen years and all I ever needed was a student or work visa. I had the same health, travel, ownership benefits abroad as here in the UK and could have voted if I had wanted to.

We don’t have to become a citizen of a political/trading block like the EU to enjoy the rights of the EU country we choose to live in (and the majority of us live in just one country). That is demonstrably so when we see the many people living and working in the UK of non-European origin. :-)
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