Viscount Waverley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Viscount Waverley on 2016-04-14.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, in the event of the UK leaving the EU, they intend to advise UK citizens living in EU member states to take citizenship in their country of residence in order to protect their legal rights.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

The Government’s view is that the UK will be stronger, safer and better off in a reformed EU. Should the UK choose to stay in the EU, British citizens will be able to work, live and retire abroad as they do now. UK citizens and citizens from other Member States living in the UK get a range of rights from our membership of the EU. If the UK were to leave the EU, all of these rights would have to be covered in a successor arrangement. If we left the EU without agreeing what would happen to these rights, it would at the least bring them into serious question, creating difficulty for UK citizens who relied on them.