Associate Citizenship of the EU for those who voted to remain

This online campaign at 38degrees.org was started three years ago. On the first day it got 10 signatures, then 25, 50 and 100. It took another few days to reach 500 and a week to reach 1,000, and then 5,000. It then slowed up at 10,000 and topped out 20,000 and then went nowhere and effectively died.

The campaign started because three years ago, there were rumours that the EU was offering an olive branch to those who voted Remain – it was the mainstream media who promoted such an idea. Sadly, it wasn’t true. The European Parliament confirmed that – “Contrary to what you might have read, associate citizenship is not on the European Parliament’s table.”

They went into some more detail:

“Despite several reports in the weekend press that the European Union is considering granting Britons “associate citizenship status”, the real story behind the headlines is quite different. The papers are referring to a resolution drafted by the European Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs Committee on EU reforms. One MEP had tabled an amendment in committee referring to EU citizenship but withdrew it before the vote was taken. The reference to EU citizenship is therefore not in the draft text which will be submitted for a vote by the full Parliament. The vote on the resolution is yet to take place. At this stage, any other interpretations of the amendment (and its withdrawal) remain in the realm of speculation.”

 

The papers click-baited the nation by taking a non-starter of a story and peddled it for punters.

 

In this story by The Independent dated December 2016, you can see they have since added a notice just recently saying: “December 2019 notice: This article was written in 2016, before Brexit talks began. Guy Verhofstadt’s proposal was included in the European Parliament’s negotiating mandate but was not taken up by the UK government and EU member states, who raised legal questions about its viability. It is no longer a live proposal.”

The general election last week saw remainers lose all hope – Brexit is now going to happen and the rights of all Briton’s will be curtailed on the continent.

Then, the same campaign was jumped-started. Two days ago the campaign to force parliament to debate the question came alive and went straight to 50,000 signatures in 24 hrs. At the time of writing barely one day later over 90,000 had confirmed their desire to see Associate Citizenship a possibility.

Another petition has been started by Jo Maugham QC of the Good Law Project and that has nearly 40,000 signatures

 

SIGN GOOD LAW PROJECT PETITION HERE

 

These campaigns may go nowhere but if millions were to sign as they did during the summer, then you never know, associate citizenship of the EU may become a thing.

 

SIGN 38DEGREES PETITION HERE

 

 

 

 

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