14 J. Shaw so) include increased political activism, via well-established actors such as the European Citizens’ Action Service, newly formed NGOs such the 3Million (EU27 in UK) and British in Europe, or repurposed pro-EU NGOs such as New Europeans or European Alternatives which have been given a new impetus by the urgency of the issues raised by Brexit. Brexit has given rise to unprecedented civic mobilisation around demands for the protection of acquired rights, including several European Citizens’ Initiatives registered by the European Commission.30 Some have raised the possibility of EU citizenship becoming a freestanding status that can be acceded to other than through the nationality of the member states, with UK citizens being offered the possibility of ‘associate citizenship’,31 but at present such proposals remain utopian (and probably undesirable) rather than practical in character. All of these initiatives unfortunately remind us what a divisive issue Brexit is and will remain especially, but not only, in the UK. Part of the reason for the Brexit vote was precisely that EU citizenship was not recognised as a social fact by the majority of voters. Yet even if EU citizenship could be said to be a prime example of conceptual change occurring before political, institutional and social reality changes, for a group of directly affected persons EU citizenship very definitely is an established social fact, as well as a source of legal rights. Once established, can the rights of EU citizenship simply be taken away by state fiat? There have been several attempts to bring this issue before the CJEU, to see whether it may be inclined to engage in judicial activism in order to protect the status of EU citizenship. In a major victory for those who have been seeking to use law and litigation in the battle for EU citizenship rights,32 a Dutch first instance court faced with such a claim by UK citizens resident in the Netherlands initially decided in February 2018 to make a reference to the CJEU under Article 267 to seek authoritative answers to questions it saw as essential to deciding the case before it. It wanted to know whether 30 31 32 See for example http://ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative/public/initiatives/open/ details/2017/000005 and http://ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative/public/initiatives/open/details/2017/000003. For reflection see Garner, O. (2017), ‘The European Citizens’ Initiative on a European Free Movement Mechanism’, European Law Blog, 23 February 2017, available at http://europeanlawblog. eu/2017/02/23/ the-european-citizens-initiative-on-a-european-free-movement-mechanism-anew-hope-or-a-false-start-for-uk-nationals-after-brexit/. See the discussion in Schrauwen, A, (2017), ‘(Not) Losing out from Brexit’, Europe and the World: A Law Review 1 (1): 1–18. Maugham, J. (2018), ‘Why I helped bring the Dutch case over Britons’ EU rights’, The Guardian, 18 January 2018, available at https://www.theguardian. com/commentisfree/2018/jan/18/ dutch-case-britons-eu-rights-brexit-uk-citizens.