CJEU confirms that UK citizens have lost EU citizenship

Look, I left the UK 33 years ago, and am a dual citizen of the UK & US. I would never think of voting or in any way participating in regular UK politics - I left, my choice, that's over with.

But Brexit was different. It directly affected my rights as a citizen, to travel and work and live freely within the EU, and Cameron's fuck up and lies took that away from me (and my daughter) without my ability to vote on it.

I can't say for sure, but there are supposedly about 5.5M expat Brits. How many of them are over the 15 year limit for voting I don't know but I would guess that there are enough that it could have made a difference to the vote. I would also guess that an overwhelming of those (excluding the idiots on the Costa del Sol) would have voted against Brexit.

Many of the current ills in the UK are directly or indirectly caused by Brexit, from labour shortages to increased haulage costs leading to a trade deficit and rising food prices. The whole thing has just been an obvious disaster. Specifically, the Office of Budget Responsibility [1] "estimates that our GDP will be 4 per cent lower than it otherwise would be because of Brexit (even without any further deterioration in the UK/EU relationship) and Brexit disruption to supply chains has already contributed to 6 per cent higher food prices". Using the most recent figure for national GDP from the Office for National Statistics [2] of £616.870 b, that's a cost of ~£2.5 bn. Nothing in comparison to the £4bn that the Tories have spent on broken PPE that they propose to burn to generate power [3] but still, a hell of a lot.

I will probably vote labour at the next election. It angers me deeply that they aren't campaigning about rejoining the EU – but were I to vote for the lib dems, who are, I fear a Tory would get in. I feel deeply that now, EVERYTHING IS WORSE FOR NO PURPOSE. Why! It's an absolute head-meet-desk (or foot-meet-gun) moment and it just seems to have been...accepted. The Union is breaking apart, we are stuck with an incompetent government by even its own piss-poor standards, with no democratic recourse and no option for undoing the damage done. Urgh. No wonder I've essentially decided to emigrate (to Europe).

[1] https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2022/05/the-economic-co... [2] https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp [3] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jun/10/4bn-of-nhs-c...

The consequences of the vote were clear 6 years back. The problem is since then, there have been endless attempts to deliver a different outcome. To muddy the waters and suggest that actually what people really wanted was prize A, B, or C.

We left the EU and articles like this shouldn’t surprise anyone.

Being a part of the EU was the wrong call for the UK, in my opinion.

Brexit implementation was painful like a bandaid, but in the long term you will benefit from this.

The price you'll need to pay is just worse economy for a decade or two, and more difficult travel/work etc, but you will have more freedom as an independent nation. That has real value.

Realistic countries need to process citizenship for former EU citizens who have been living in their country for long enough to achieve citizenship.

In the UK any resident can vote in municipal elections - there is no citizenship requirement.

Of course that's a bit beside the point in the case though. I guess that option is only open to EU citizens. I find that odd, but I guess that's the law.

- omg! so unfair

I am not a lawyer, nor do I know more details, but I would guess it should not change anything for you, as your slovakian citizenship should suffice.

[edit] first version was missing a crucial „Not“

As Slovakia is a member state of the EU, this will not itself directly affect you.

The question that arose after Brexit was, whether British citizens would possibly retain this citizenship, which could have meant that they would retain the rights that come with it as well. There are different arguments why British citizens might have kept this EU citizenship, for example it might be argued that the withdrawal of a _state_ from the Union can not mean that _individuals_ loose their rights or it could be argued that such a loss of rights would be disproportionate.

The CJEU has now interpreted the treaties in such a way that the withdrawal does indeed mean that individuals loose their EU citizenship, arguing that "the authors of the Treaties thus established an inseparable and exclusive link between possession of the nationality of a Member State and not only the acquisition, but also the retention, of the status of citizen of the Union".

So this ruling might have had a big effect if the CJEU decided in a different way. The way they decided now, everything stays the same. If you are in possession of another EU member states citizenship (Slovakia) this will not change anything for you, you will remain an EU citizen.

[1] Technically many of those rights were already in the treaties before the introduction of the EU citizenship, so it is a bit "declaratory" in nature.

Long story short, EU citizens have certain rights in some member states. When the UK left, UK citizens are no longer entitled to any rights given to "EU citizens" in their country of residence.

Brexiters did, indeed, in general, think they were voting to strip the rest of us of our rights, and they succeeded in doing so - they thought that this was worth "protecting us from Brussels" or preventing immigration or that it would mean £350 million a week to the NHS or whatever else.

This court case (and a handful of similar ones) was a last-ditch attempt of people stripped of their rights to keep them.

Therein lies the crux of the problem - nobody knew exactly what a vote for Brexit would mean, beyond somehow leaving the EU and "sending Johnny Foreigner back".

Many politicians and the tabloid media spread many dubious claims, and plenty outright lies, about the purported benefits of Brexit. For example, fisherman were made to believe French and Spanish boats would no longer fish in their waters - which never came true. This particular one example is a good one, because it demonstrates well that this group, who rely on cheap foreign labour, didn't know what they were voting for.

I’m not sure that’s trivially obvious. The process of joining the EU is complex and extremely well documented and understood.

The process of leaving is a couple paragraphs with zero specifics.

Ultimately the question boiled down to, having been granted EU citizenship, on what basis was that citizenship revoked? If EU citizenship is just an extension of your national citizenship to an EU member, then reason for loss is clear.

But if your EU citizenship is distinct and additional to your national citizenship, then what basis was it revoked, and what gave the revoking entity the right to strip a person of their EU citizenship?

Clearly the courts strong believe that EU citizenship is directly tied to your citizenship of an EU member. But until the ruling was made, that answer wasn’t absolutely clear, and why shouldn't UK citizens make a Hail Mary attempt at preserving their EU citizenship? The down side of bringing the case and loosing is a lose of time and money, but winning would fundamentally change many peoples relationship with the EU.

In the UK the rules are the same as Sweden where any resident can vote. But it seems many countries have citizenship requirements even for the municipal elections.

Welcome to the not-so-united Kingdom of England and Wales. The Queen will die along with her Kingdom as a symbolic cherry on the cake.

2) The EU is not Europe. Leaving the EU did not stop British citizens from being European.

Have you consided that some of the people who are confused about this DID NOT VOTE TO LEAVE? That they are confused because nobody explained, or could explain, at the time of the Brexit, that these wouldbe the consequences? The Leave campaign was (at best) disingenous about the consequences; the Remain campaign could not predict all the consequences because that would require an actual deal to analyze.