Brexit -am I stupid or what

Perhaps I spend too much time on forums although I've come across the phenomenon quite a bit here, too. Scots, Welsh and Irish can be as nationalistic and offensive as they like but woe betide an English person who claims to be just that, and not 'British'. I hasten to add.....GC members excepted!
Partly the fault of the pesky French, they do have a sloppy habit of calling every anglo-saxon-celt 'un anglais'

 

Did someone call me?!

Ok, how things stand in Belgium for working British citizens....

First of all, if you are not visiting on holiday, you have to register within 5 days with the council where you live. This applies to everyone, as we have to carry ID at all times (although unless stopped by the police, many people slip under the radar for years). So you are legally living in Belgium, you can easily prove how long you have lived in the country.

There is no free healthcare, although the state support is good. We have to pay into a non-profit health scheme, which then pays out most of the costs when you are ill. At the moment, visitors coming from the UK are covered by the EHIC card (European Health Insurance Card?), but obviously this will stop come Brexit. As a night’s stay in hospital costs €1000+, health insurance will be required by all visitors. If they are over 80yrs, it’s basically a no-no.

We pay Belgian income tax, Belgian insurance, Belgian health insurance, and social tax. We also have Belgian pensions, both private and state. Until recently, we were not sure what would happen come Brexit, but the Belgian government has just, within the last few weeks, passed a law to protect our right to stay, to own property, and to work in Belgium. (We have been resident for 10 years). But we will not be able to easily move to another European country, should work dictate that we need to.

The EU have not been playing with the British expats, as has sometimes been alleged. The status of non-EU nationals is not covered by the EU per-say, so it is down to the individual member states, what they choose to do. In Belgium we have finally been able to breathe a sigh of relief.

(Oh, finally, in case you are thinking “well, they chose to move to Europe, so why are they complaining?”. When we moved out, we were doing just what Mr Tebbit told us to do. There was no work in our sector within the UK, so we “got on our bike”, and followed the jobs...
Out of 20 IT specialists who started work in the same company in just one year in the late 1980s, 8 of us ended up working in the Benelux countries, as the UK job market dried up, only 2 remaining in the sector in the UK)

 

Seems to me that the solution should be pre-Brexit migrant situations should be grandfathered and the old rules still apply. Nobody gets turfed and they still get treated as citizens of their resident country. Different day, same old.

Post Brexit migrations - new rules apply -caveat emptor.

 

I

Will EU nationals granted UK residency be able to move freely between England, Wales, Scotland and N.I. ?

 

Ummmm.... I take it you are joking, right?

 

I refer you to my point.... the status of non EU nationals, ie us post-Brexit, is not in the hands of the EU negotiators, but in the 27 member states.

 

I think a lot of this anti English thing comes from when the National Front hijacked the England flag, so the snowflakes in England shyed away from the flag, and made it unfriendly to be English.

The English are their own worst enemy when it comes to blowing their own trumpet and patriotism and much prefer to bum up other countries, their culture, food etc. and put themselves down.

 

Could we just be clear on this point? At worst, the EU negotiators insisted on reciprocity. Why would they grant guarantees as to the future status of Brits in Europe unless Britain is prepared to do the same for Europeans?

 

And that underlines an important aspect of the whole argument against the EU. Despite the British gutter Press's fixation with the shape of bananas and the content of sausages, each country within the EU does retain the right to adapt EU regulations as they see fit.

 

Well...I do like a good fink...but only every other Sunday and when health permits....

Interesting article on the Beeb website - in a nutshell - if we revoke article 50 - the EU could impose all sorts of conditions around our continued membership - Euro and Schenzen were mentioned.

 

@ARMANDII

Sadly I think you are right, but we have to start to heal these divisions sometime and somehow.