Where do the Tories go now?

17 months ago the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. Only this week Ms May sent out letters to EU citizens still living in the UK with a simple message: “I couldn’t be clearer: EU citizens lawfully in the UK will be able to stay’. She also stated there was no intention of using us “as bargaining chips” in negotiations and promising to provide us an easy route to settlement. We are within “touching distance” of an agreement on citizens’ rights, she concludes, sounding ever so positive.

I am a European citizen. I have read the letter and my first thought was how convenient is the timing of this maternal letter. Just ahead of the EU summit, at a time when negotiations are stuck in a “dramatic” deadlock. Of course I am a bargaining chip, Ms May. For 17 months we all have been waiting for a solution that seems pretty obvious to anyone but you: let us just remain with the same status we enjoy now. It was clear from the beginning of the Brexit talks, the divorce was going to have a rocky start concerning money and kids. I, like many others are tired and weary. I am totally disappointed that all of us, here in the UK and across the EU, were thrown in the same bag with the money. Both sides, the UK and the EU should have had agreed on our situation first before even starting to talk about anything else, citizens first, right? Obviously not for anyone involved. After the EU summit my despair has grown even more. The deadlock seems to have been overpitched, a dramatic way to play it for the press. Everyone seems pretty keen to start talking trade as soon as possible. So am I. Time is running out but I wonder if in the hurry to sort out the economics we will be toyed with once more.

The letter sent to the EU citizens has been received with a pinch of salt and tons of scepticism. The problem with Ms May’s cabinet is they have this amazing ability of shooting themselves in the foot. Their intention might be conciliatory but their choice of words is definitely not. In Theresa’s letter she mentioned ‘citizens lawfully in the UK’, a minor detail I suppose but unless I am totally mistaken we are lawfully living here as part of the freedom of movement and so every UK citizens does all over the EU. The wrong choice of word is more worrying coming from the Home secretary, Amber Rudd when she explained that with the new registration system to apply for a settled status “EU nationals currently in UK would be able to regularise their position”. Regularise? Settled status? I am settled here and I never thought I will need to regularise my status. Over a decade of working, paying taxes, voting in my local elections…. Is that not enough? May and the rest of her team should be advised to choose their words more carefully. Brexit allowed a little minority to show their true colours regarding immigration and targeted EU citizens in numbers we have never seen before 23rd June 2016. They shouldn’t underestimate the use of the right words. We are lawfully and settled. It is up to them now to let this status continue regardless of the outcome of the negotiations.

I seriously do not think anyone in Westminster grasps not even for a second what 17 months of continual deceit and misinformation have done not only to us but to the whole of the country. Brexit is not a game or a marathon. In less than a year and a half we all are out of the EU and still it seems it was yesterday when you voted to leave. There is no clear direction and a sense that the country is not as prepared as our politicians pretend to be for all scenarios. I have always said that Brexit was about who can manage the immediate future better. The social and economic repercussions will cause shockwaves internationally and it will be us, all of us workers who will suffer the consequences the most. Mr Barnier and Mr Davis can bicker as much as they want about final bills but it will be us paying the most costly cheque at the end of all this mess. So thank you Ms May for such an endearing letter but I am afraid I do feel like a bargaining chip. I have for the last 17 months and it is a little bit too late, at least for me, to start to believe in every promise you make. “A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing” wrote Oscar Wilde. I have become a very cynic woman indeed.

#Brexit