Letter assuring EU citizens in the UK that they will be allowed to stay is a PR exercise aimed at other leaders, campaigners say

Campaigners for the rights of EU citizens in the UK and British nationals in Europe have said a letter from Theresa May reassuring them they will be allowed to stay where they are post-Brexit is “meaningless” and a PR exercise aimed at other EU leaders.

Activists lobbying on behalf of the 3.6 million EU citizens in the UK said the letter was welcome but addressed to the wrong people. “We want to stay in this country. So we agree on that. But this letter is for the eyes of the leaders of the Council of Europe. If she really meant this, this letter would have been sent 12 months ago,” said Nicolas Hatton, the co-founder of the3million group.

He said EU leaders had been happy to meet them, but all requests for meetings with May or the Brexit secretary, David Davis, had been rebuffed. They were meeting the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, again in November, and if May was really committed to their plight then she would meet them too, he said.

British nationals in Europe also expressed scepticism. “It is hard not to take a cynical view [of this letter], especially in view of the timing. I still feel we are the human shields,” said Debra Williams, a Briton living in the Netherlands who runs Brexpats: Hear our Voice.

Theresa May writes to EU citizens in UK to reassure them over post-Brexit status Read more

She called on May to ringfence talks on their rights to ensure Britons in Europe are not deemed unlawful residents in 2019 if the UK crashes out of the EU with no deal.

“I wrote to the Department for Exiting the EU regarding this and I have had four separate replies including a letter from 10 Downing Street. All ignored this question. Yes, we are mightily fed up,” Wilson said.

Hatton said May’s claim that Britain was within touching distance of a deal was hard to reconcile with his group’s view that negotiators were “barely out of the starting blocks”, with fundamental differences of opinion remaining on oversight by the European court of justice and a new “settled status” immigration category that campaigners say amounts to a diminution of existing rights.

May’s letter was sent to tens of thousands of EU citizens who have registered with the Home Office for updates on the Brexit negotiations. She said the claim that EU citizens were being used as bargaining chips could not be “further from the truth”, they had made a valuable contribution to the country and they were welcome to remain in the country.

“I couldn’t be clearer: EU citizens living lawfully in the UK today will be able to stay,” she wrote.

British in Europe, a coalition of campaign groups across the continent, said the letter “didn’t say anything new so we aren’t any further forward. What we want to see is concrete progress on both sides rather than nice words. We need certainty not reassurances.”

In Spain, Italy, France and the Benelux there is growing concern about a no-deal Brexit. “Businesses and even the UK government are preparing contingency plans – should EU and UK citizens be doing the same?,” asked Sue Wilson, of the Bremain in Spain group.

An Italian citizen in the UK who contacted the Guardian on Thursday said forcing EU citizens to apply to be immigrants in Britain was “offensive” and would “constitute a degradation of our current rights”.

Alessandro de Sanctis wrote: “We came to live in this (once) great country (which I am beginning to despise) long before the Brexit nonsense. We should be able to maintain our pre-Brexit rights.”

Gareth Horsfall, who lives in Italy and campaigns for British nationals, said that although May’s letter was reassuring, it “still does not provide us with a sense of security” beyond 2019. “Should the Tory rightwing win their no-deal scenario, then the rhetoric regarding protection of our rights is worthless,” he said.

Dave Spokes, of the lobby group Expats Citizen Rights in EU, said: “We can’t help thinking this letter is just a PR exercise … Citizens’ rights should have been resolved months ago when the EU first offered to preserve current rights. It was the UK which moved the goal posts by introducing ‘settled status’.”