Expats’ Brexit fears must be addressed

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/06/expats-brexit-fears-must-be-addressed

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Theresa May’s refusal of guarantees to EU nationals living in the UK is as shortsighted as it is mean-spirited (May under pressure to guarantee EU citizens can remain in Britain, 5 July). Cannot she see that the best way to safeguard the rights of the 1.2 million UK citizens resident in the EU is to cement the goodwill of European governments by offering full and immediate assurances to their expatriates? Or does she calculate that the fate of Brits in the EU can be ignored because so many of them are disenfranchised?

If so, this would be a potentially foolish miscalculation. My English mother (resident in France for over 15 years and thus disbarred from voting in a referendum that may affect her much more directly than most of her compatriots on this side of the Channel) is investigating naturalisation as the only way to continue receiving the costly healthcare on which she depends, but is terrified that such a step might deprive her of her UK state pension once Brexit occurs. Similar fears must now be playing out across Europe.

If they prove true, the government should expect an influx of perhaps hundreds of thousands of returning retirees, many with serious health conditions, to say nothing of their need for age-appropriate housing. What is more, they will all have the vote again.Rob SykesOxford

• Cannot Mrs May please reassure EU citizens now resident in the UK that they will be able to stay? Our Polish friends, who have lived here for 16 years, bought a flat and work and pay taxes, never thought they might have to return. Would not any parents, faced with the uncertainty that they now face, especially as to their eight-year-old’s schooling, be suffering sleepless nights as they do?

Mrs May may wish to state that she expects reciprocity from the EU. But this is a humanitarian issue and one of good faith. She, of all people, will surely want the Conservatives to avoid being branded as the “nasty party”.David ThorpeLondon

• The Conservative government may have repeatedly reaffirmed their commitment to reducing poverty in Africa. The Conservative Brexit leaders may have promised during the recent referendum debate that an independent UK would trade with the Commonwealth and the rest of the world. But it is revealing that Africa has become a dirty word, and none of the Tory leadership contenders has mentioned it during their election hustings (Conservative MPs start voting in leadership contest, 5 July). All they are guaranteeing is the status of EU migrants already in the UK. What about the African migrant children currently stranded in Calais and Libya, and the ones waiting for the next people-smuggler to send them across the Sahara desert?

No other issue would open clear blue water between the Conservative leadership candidates than a statement that, if elected, one of their priorities would be to assist Africa to trade itself out of poverty. This is because, despite the increases in the UK and EU aid budgets to Africa, the continent has become poorer and hungrier, driving tens of thousands of men, women and children to take risky journeys in search of a better life in Europe every year. Some 5,000 of them perished in the Mediterranean Sea last year alone. How many more African children must die on their way to Europe before these Conservative leadership contenders recognise that aid is not working, and the continent has to trade in order to raise the funds necessary for building schools, health centres, water bore holes and for investing in food production?Sam AkakiDirector, Democratic Institutions for Poverty Reduction in Africa (Dipra)

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