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G. Morgan
moment, people in Europe are offered only the status of being hyphenated
Europeans (French-European; German-European, Italian-European etc.)
rather than Europeans as such. Brexit provides an opportunity here. Sixteen
million UK electors voted to remain in the EU. These people will now lose
even their meagre hyphenated status and become, for the most part, reluctant national citizens of a country in the grip of populist nativism.2 The EU
can rescue pro-Europeans from their fallen state by offering them Union
citizenship –European passports unmediated by national citizenship, which
will provide them with the right to live and work anywhere in Europe. Many
UK citizens will jump at the opportunity.
One difficulty with this proposal is that it offers UK citizens an advantage
not currently extended to other Europeans, including, most worryingly,
those now living in Britain who are threatened with losing their right to live
and work there. To address this problem, the offer of unmediated European
citizenship for Brits could be made conditional on Britain offering current
EU citizens full national citizenship in Britain. Doubtless, the current
Conservative Government will reject this suggestion. Alternatively, the offer
of EU citizenship for Brits could be made contingent on certain forms of
equitable treatment for current EU citizens resident in Britain. Such conditional offers from the EU will further encourage the pro-European British
citizens to fight for the rights of current EU citizens in Britain. Any future
British government that might wish to play fast and loose with such people
will face the ire of the pro-European British eagerly awaiting the opportunity to acquire EU citizenship.
More generally, it might be objected that this citizenship proposal
rewards secessionists like Britain by offering UK citizens a desirable form
of unmediated citizenship. Surely, this might simply encourage other
European member states to follow Britain out of Europe. This objection can
be met by charging UK citizens a fee, say €10,000, to acquire European
Citizenship. This policy will not only provide the funds to finance the
Citizenship Office, which will have to be created de novo, but will discourage countries from thinking that they can secede from Europe while enjoying the full benefits of membership. If €10,000 is too much for some people,
they could be offered European citizenship for free in return for working on
pro-EU projects, which could be arranged and overseen by the new
2
‘Polish men attacked in “hate crime” hours after murdered Pole’s vigil in
Harlow’, Independent, 4 September 2016, available at http://www.independent.
co.uk/news/uk/crime/polish-hate-crime-harlow-essex-attacked-murdered-vigilarek-j-wik-brexit-a7225166.html.
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