A Fair and Serious Offer

I know it’s very early in the Brexit negotiations and it may be premature optimism but, given all of the uncertainty about our futures here in France, I for one breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing of Theresa May’s ‘Fair & Serious’ offer on the rights of EU citizens resident in the UK. However, now having had the opportunity to have read the reports in most of the British press and some French papers l am not so sure her offer was either fair or serious. It’s a bit like window dressing for an empty shop - looks good from the outside but there’s not a lot inside. It seems a half hearted attempt to appease her critics who, since her failed election campaign, are increasing in number. One sense’s that if she had her way the offer would never have been made. Madame May loves a slogan so following “Brexit means Brexit” and “Strong and stable leadership” we now have “Fair and Serious offer” she seems to think that the more the phrase is repeated people will believe her. I for one am not convinced - Are You?

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No I’m not convinced. The devil is in the detail, TM has not clarified any details and I’m far from convinced that she even realises all the issues that are involved. All she seems to have said is that she won’t kick anyone out, which she seems to think is incredibly generous of her. But the question is not only about the right to reside, which was pretty much a foregone conclusion in any case, it’s about other rights and entitlements. S1s, exportable benefits, the right to bring your family to live with you, pension rights when people have worked in several EU states, all the small but very important details that are currently governed by a whole raft of EU legislation. Does she envisage continuing with the existing arrangements or not? All of them, some of them, none of them? Does she even know what all these arrangements involve? And again, it has to be reciprocal.

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Never liked her from day one and I look at the character of a person.
Someone who changes their mind just to gain power, fame or money is not
my sort of person…and, to my mind does not make a good leader.
So along with her goes Boris the UKip man…and a few others.

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Far too early , would not trust her with your life !

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I can’t see that they will ever make an acceptable deal. The best hope is that they will fail and following a vote of no confidence, Labour will be brave enough to go to the polls with a manifesto to remain in the EU.
Meantime, at the age of 80, my pension income has taken another hit due to the falling exchange rate (Triple lock or not) and I may not live long enough to enjoy the promised benefits of leaving or the re-stabilization of remaining. I wouldn’t mind that much, except that I know that the super-rich are taking advantage of all the uncertainty to add to their unearned and undeserved wealth.
I will soon have been away from the UK for more than 15 years and will lose the right to vote in future elections. The only action left to me is to take my revenge by going back to die slowly and expensively under the care of the NHS, along with about a million other expat pensioners,

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I agree Anthony, I would not trust her with my enemy’s life (If I had an enemy that is :slight_smile:

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I have an enemy and I would love to put her life in TM’s hands :rage: unfortunately my enemy is not a Brit.

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Mike, I can empathise and agree. I have been away for over 15 years and I do not have the right to vote, however, I am expected to suffer the consequences of stupid decisions made in the U.K. The exchange rate is not kind to those of us who get our money from the U.K. Then again, we did well for some time.

Do not go back and die in the U.K. It may be slow and it may be expensive to Britain, but it will not be a pleasant happening for you. The Tories have, with full intent, nearly destroyed the NHS. The NHS staff are fantastic, but they have their backs up against the wall and this Government is causing it, intentionally. Stay in France, where we have a decent health system (if you are in the system, that is).

I wish you good luck, young man.

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Mike, I think Marc’s advice is sound. It’s not outside the bounds of possibility that elderly people with life-limiting conditions and no prospect of recovery will soon be ‘triaged out’ and not admitted to a hospital bed to die.

I speak as a health professional with 40+ years experience of the way the NHS operates.

Medicine has encouraged unrealistic life-expectancy amongst the very old (I am 79 myself) and is rowing back on what can and ought to be done. If, or when, dying and death is ‘de-medicalised’ and regarded as an aspect of ‘social care provision’, society will necessariy find that it has to roll up its figurative sleeves and get on with it, as it has for untold centuries past; and still does, with quiet dignity, across most of our benighted globe.

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Peter, you put it so much better than I. :slight_smile:

[quote=“Tigger, post:10, topic:16670”]
Peter, you put it so much better than I. :slight_smile:
[/quote]Marc Arnall, not so that I put it better than you, I get at least as much from the contributions you make as anyone gets from mine. Mine tend to be reactive. I seldom initiate a topic, which is more demanding, I think. That’s the success of this forum, it’s lively, sparky, intelligent and on the whole as good-humoured as the medium allows. There’s a tendency on some threads to extremes of opinion, which can be wearying and even depressing. But one hopes that somewhere along the line ideas are modified and the rich experience adversaries often bring adds to our knowledge and to our tolerance of complexity and diversity.

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I think we’ll all be pretty much OK, no need for naturalisation etc. and the status quo will more or less remain for those of us already settled. On a personal note things are far more complicated for our family as we’ve thought about going to live in the UK for a year or two so my kids benefit from that culture and language. This is no longer possible (my understanding) as if we did it before/during brexit I’d be in the UK as a UK citizen when brexit happens so wouldn’t be able to come back (or we’d have to come back before the deadline) And if we went after brexit my OH couldn’t because she’s French! :frowning:

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Well this would depend on whatever the EU/France decide, wouldn’t it. Rather than what the UK decides.
Your dilemma certainly does illustrate what a difference the end of freedom of movement will make, how difficult it will be to adapt to no longer having something we’ve grown up taking for granted, and how much more limited our cultural horizons might become. .
But it’s not yet been decided what will and will not be possible so you don’t have to give up on the plan yet. I hope you find a way.

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I must admit to feeling disenfranchised - 15 year rule prevented me from voting in the referendum and the General Election and not allowed to vote in the French Presidential or Legislative elections. However both the UK (Government Pension) and France (Other Pensions) are taking a considerable amount of Income Tax from me. Still the good news is that Naturalisation is not necessary and will keep my reciprocal healthcare. Bad news is that when l pop off my wife planned to return to UK to be close to our daughter and grandchildren, but because she is French and despite having previously lived in London for 30 years, will have to apply for residency. Overall, from my perspective, l am now far more optimistic about it than l was this time last year.

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I have got used to May. As soon as it was announced as a ‘generous offer’ I knew that I should worry. The EU made a generous offer some weeks ago but May trundles in with no more than is available to immigrants now.

IMO this is either such incredible arrogance and stupidity that is unbelievable, or the plan is to flounce out of these discussions as a super hard Brexit.

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You think there is any plan at all? :rofl:

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That last bit was a joke Marc, though probably in rather bad taste. Actually, my fiendish plan is to survive as long as possible, so as to get as much back as I can from a working life of social security contributions. So far, so good!

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Peter,
I seem to remember that, in the days before computers, they used to hang your notes on a clipboard at the foot of the bed. If you were past 65, chances were that they would carry the coded instruction “NFR” which was understood to mean “not for resuscitation.” We have progressed a little in the last half century.

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Anna, it has long been the practice to ask patients if they have preferences about resuscitation, and to record them if they have. Such decisions are rightly regarded and treated as confidential. Next-of-kin have no right of access to confidential information recorded in an individual’s records, or to confidential information divulged by an individual to a health professional.

Right of access to such information may be granted by the individual, but should never be assumed.

A mother may not wish to have her son advised of her decision, knowing that he might challenge it, or for any other legitimate reason. Being someone’s son confers no right to a mother’s mind or to the decisions she reaches. A child should not assume to know the mother’s mind, nor a mother her child’s.

I write not so much as to lecture, just to get things straight and so as to avoid the unnecessary and uninformed confrontation of health professionals, who come in for enough of that already.