EU voters in London - should any London councillor or assembly candidate want to endanger their voting and residency rights by backing Brexit?

As a local councillor, I have 1,344 EU voters in my Swiss Cottage ward, i.e. citizens of other EU countries who can only vote in local, London and European Parliament elections.  This excludes citizens of Ireland, Cyprus and Malta who can also vote in parliamentary elections.

That's 15% of my electorate.  It's a similar picture in other Camden wards - 947 in Hampstead Town ward, 13% of the electorate.  The lowest figure in Camden is Highgate ward, at 541 or 7%.  Generally in Camden it ranges from 10-15%.  The picture is not dissimilar across London, though in some places there are obviously many more French and Germans, and in other places more Poles or Spanish etc.  I haven't researched the figure for London as a whole, but it's in the region of 400-500,000 I think.

These residents have had these voting rights since the 1990s.  They've also had the right to live and work here under the Single Market rules from the 1980s.  Some are very long settled here, others not.  They don't vote in the same numbers as UK citizens, but their turnout is rising, and quite large numbers of EU citizens come and ask for assistance from me and my two councillor colleagues.  Since they have a vote, they are our constituents in just the same way as anyone else, and they are also the constituents of the local London assembly member, of the Mayor of London, and of London's eight MEPs.

So I started to wonder what would be the position of these EU citizens in terms of voting and residency rights if the UK were to leave the EU.  I asked Camden Council's senior managers and lawyers for their understanding of the position.  The answer wasn't encouraging, not very clear.  In terms of voting rights, this would require UK legislation to be changed to take them off the electoral register.  But of course in the event of Brexit, this could happen - why give EU citizens, including new arrivals, a vote when we've left?  On freedom of movement and right of residency, it seems this is more a matter of EU regulation and its application in the UK, rather than primary UK legislation.  Certainly the automatic right of any EU citizen to live and work here would go.  Perhaps, in practice, all of those living here would be given the right to stay, but it's unclear and would be messy and very unsettling for those involved.  Of course, these residents are not just City bankers (nothing wrong with that), but also doctors and nurses at the Royal Free - they are a long established part of our local community and part of what makes London fantastic.

So my question to my fellow local councillors in Camden, and across London, and to London assembly and London mayoral candidates, and London MEPs, is simply this - do you favour a course of action which would probably disenfranchise many residents you either represent or seek to represent?  Do you favour a course of action which would, at the very least, create considerable uncertainty about their right to live and work in London?  I know I don't.

These voters have not been given a vote in the EU referendum - that ship has sailed.  They do however have a vote in the London mayoral and London assembly elections in May.  I hope that they are asking all the candidates where they stand on Brexit.  I'm a Conservative and I hope all our candidates will do the right thing.

Andrew Marshall

Holborn and St Pancras community meeting to kick off local Britain StrongerIn Europe - this Saturday at 12pm

This Saturday 6th February sees the launch of the campaign in Holborn and St Pancras with a Community meeting at 12pm-1pm at the Steve Smith Community Hall, Cumberland Market Estate, Redhill St  London NW1 4AX.

Full details below, come along to give your perspective and get involved!

http://www.strongerin.co.uk/holborn_stpancras_community_meeting?utm_campaign=lonholbornstpan&utm_medium=email&utm_source=in

Britain Stronger In Europe launch meeting in Camden - Monday 1st February - you're invited!

On Monday 1^st February at 8pm, we're inviting friends and neighbours to come to Martha’s Bar underneath the Washington Pub in Belsize Park for an event to talk about the work being done by the ‘Stronger In’ campaign. We're volunteering with Stronger In – an organisation working to make sure Britain remains stronger in Europe – and we wanted to bring together friends who we know also care about these issues, to talk about what’s happening in our community and about how we can get involved

We're excited that in Camden lots of people have said they want to help and get involved in the campaign to make sure we win the referendum to keep Britain in Europe in our national interest.

Light refreshments will be available to buy, and you’ll also have an opportunity to meet other people who care about these issues and who are committed to working locally to inform and persuade people about Europe - which is so vital to opportunities and prosperity in Camden, London and for the whole of the UK. 

Date: Monday 1^st February

Time: 8pm

Location: Martha’s Bar, The Washington, Englands Lane, NW3 4UE

Let us know you’ll be there by emailing andrew.marshall27@btopenworld.com

Hope to see you there!

Andrew Dismore backs Camden in Europe and writes on the Referendum

We're delighted Andrew Dismore, Labour GLA member for Barnet and Camden is backing our cross party local efforts as we get closer the referendum campaign.

His new article on the issues he sees as most important for Britain in the Referendum decision can be read on his website here

Farage and Anti-EU forces won't give any answers as to what would happen in case of Brexit

Here's Andrew Marshall's letter in the CNJ this week.

A divorce from the EU after 43 years would be a messy business

THIS year looks likely to bring the EU referendum and, no doubt, by the end of the year people in Camden will be heartily sick of the debate. 

But it matters desperately, because leaving the EU after four decades would bring big, unquantifiable, risks for the way the UK economy works. Tellingly, Nigel Farage and the anti-EU brigade won’t answer some basic questions about what would happen if we left. 

Would the UK become a member of the European Economic Area, like Norway, which would give it access to the single market but force us to obey all the rules but without having any say?  

Would the UK be able to secure a trade special deal with the EU like Switzerland? 

Both these options involve free movement of labour, by the way, and financial contributions. Or would we just have rely on being a World Trade Organisation member, so trading with the EU in the way that, say, Brazil does; which would mean significant constraints on our huge trade in services especially? 

The reason the anti-EU campaign won’t tell us is that they don’t know what could be secured, just as Alex Salmond was unable to answer the currency question in the Scottish referendum. 

What’s certain is that in those circumstances, the UK would not be in the room when the other 27 states were working out what to offer.    

Our bargaining power would be weak, because while the EU takes nearly half UK exports we account for only about a tenth of exports from other EU countries to us. No country has ever left the EU – a divorce after 43 years would be messy and not a risk we should lightly take.

We at Camden in Europe look forward to debating this anywhere, any time, across the borough.

CLLR ANDREW MARSHALL (CONSERVATIVE)
Camden in Europe

Lessons of 1975 referendum for the Remain campaign

Havard Hughes, a local Conservative supporter of Camden in Europe and the Remain campaign, writes today in City AM here on the lessons of the 1975 referendum for the Conservatives.

Some excellent new year reading on EU from Prospect magazine

There are some excellent articles on EU issues on the Prospect magazine site (and of course I recommend subscribing..)

Here eminent economist George Magnus puts it plainly:

" a vote to leave would have deleterious effects on the UK economy, business confidence, foreign investment in the UK—including the much-vaunted influx of Chinese investment capital. Sterling would probably take a plunge, and the cost to jobs of all this would dwarf the excited and false consciousness estimates made by Brexit enthusiasts over the costs to Britain of EU membership and immigration."

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/blogs/george-magnus/the-year-when-politics-will-trump-economics

And here leading pollster (and local resident) Peter Kellner talks about how the Remain campaign can best put a positive case:

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/blogs/peter-kellner/eu-referendum-how-to-make-the-case-for-europe