Everything is ready for article 50 to be triggered... time to apply for Permanent Residence!

Since the day after Brexit I have had mixed thoughts about what might happen to us EU citizens in Great Britain.

I obviously cannot imagine EU citizens being "deported" back to their country, despite many "brexiteers" (those who voted in favour of Brexit) or "kippers" (UKIP voters) possibly wishing for that...
Despite everything that is happening at the moment in this country and in this crazy world (did you say Trump?), I cannot possibly imagine a country like the UK, doing anything like that.
Also this was confirmed today by David Davis (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/david-davis-says-uk-will-not-deport-eu-citizens-after-brexit_uk_58c6cb1fe4b054a0ea6c4831)... not that I trust him or anything! 

However, Theresa May and her government seem very firm on their position not to unilaterally guarantee the rights of EU citizens in the UK and this is creating discomfort to many (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/18/eu-citizens-right-to-stay-britain-chaos).

Last week the Lords voted in favour of guaranteeing the rights of EU citizens, but today, the decision was pushed back by the House of Commons, who rejected both the amendments to the Brexit bill suggested by the House of Lords.

As a result, I think it is now time for EU citizens who have been here long enough to start thinking of applying for Permanent residence.
I see many people are against it in principle, as they think they already have the right to be here and do not want to lower their head and start the "lengthy" process.
However I strongly recommend people do look into it as, while deportation might not happen, we do not know how our rights will be affected after Brexit. Will we still have access to free heath? What about pensions, will anything change in that regard?

While a Permanent Residency card does not guarantee rights forever (when the Uk leaves the UE, some of those rights might stop being applicable to EU citizens in the UK), in the short-medium term this is what everyone should be doing.

I keep reading everywhere that the process is very long and complicated, involving an 85 page form (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/eu-citizens-rights-uk-brexit-application-permanent-residency-form-85-pages-european-union-a7613991.html) and the submission of a very long list of documents. However, in my experience if one has been working for the entire period they have been in the country, the process is much shorter. I will soon write a brief post about this, as I want to help as many EU citizens as possible apply and get permanent residence.

A new era for this blog - Brexit Britain

I have not written on this blog for a long time.
Last time I wrote I was relatively still new to the country and my posts were quite happygolucky, mainly on the differences between Italy and the UK.

Despite being geographically in Europe and part of the EU, I realised straight away that this country was very different from Italy, my homeland, as well as from the rest of Europe.
The idea of the blog was to share some of the funny thoughts going through my head as I observed these differences.

Despite the country being still geographically in Europe, in June 2016 the people of the United Kingdom have voted to leave the EU.
I must admit that the day after the referendum I cried. I cried while on the phone with my parents as I tried to explain why the news had upset me.
The only thing that made me feel better was to learn that many other Europeans cried as well in the Brexit aftermath. We suddenly did not feel so welcome anymore. Something was about to change.

I have always believed in the EU. I took full advantage of it when I participated in the Erasmus project many years ago. And once again when I moved here at the end of 2011. No need of a visa, I just applied for a job from Italy, got it and came over here. But I could have equally come here without a job and stayed as long as I wanted if needed. I loved that concept of free movement.

But now Brexit is indeed happening. And we must deal with it.

I will try to occasionally keep posting about fun facts, but I fear the majority are going to be focussed on Brexit and how it affects the life of us Europeans living in this country.