Tory leadership candidate also plans to abolish need to prove settled status if he becomes PM

Michael Gove will pledge free British citizenship for 3 million EU nationals after Brexit if he becomes prime minister, as well as abolishing the burden of providing proof of settled status, the Guardian understands.

The environment secretary, one of the leading figures in Vote Leave, is understood to believe strongly that the pledge would honour the promises given to EU citizens by that campaign during the 2016 referendum.

He has given his backing to a campaign by the Conservative party backbencher Alberto Costa, a leading champion of EU citizens’ rights, who said he had spent two months canvassing opinion from leadership candidates on the issue.

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“Michael Gove has fully agreed to adopt my proposals and he will publicly announce that it was wrong to put EU citizens on the negotiation table in the first place,” Costa told the Guardian.

“But he will also go further and offer them British citizenship at no cost if he becomes prime minister. This is Michael’s way of saying to EU nationals: I’m sorry, the Vote Leave campaign was never about EU citizens’ rights.

“He is unambiguously demonstrating that leaving the EU is not about moving the goalposts of citizens’ rights and accordingly, he has my full support as a candidate for the premiership.”

Gove’s pledge, which he will announce on Tuesday, will offer British citizenship to those who wish to take it up, without cost, if EU citizens were present in the UK before the referendum, potentially saving them between £1,000 and £2,000.

Those who do not wish to apply for citizenship will still be granted settled status, which under the agreement with the EU would continue to apply to EU arrivals during the transition period. However, Gove will say that as prime minister EU citizens will not need to supply proof and there will be a presumption of their right to remain.

This would bring UK into line with EU countries that merely require a migrant EU national to notify their town hall of their ID and address.

The pledge sees Gove tip his hat to both wings of the fracturing Tory party, both to liberals in the party who felt Theresa May’s use of EU citizens as a negotiating tool was too harsh, as well as reminding Brexiters of his role as one of the key thinkers of the leave campaign.

A source close to Gove said: “Michael Gove is ready to unite the country. Guaranteeing the rights of EU nationals here in the UK through a declaratory scheme, and making a generous offer of citizenship to those lawfully here at the time of the referendum, is a first step in that direction.

“This is simply the right thing to do: honouring the promise of Vote Leave that EU nationals studying, working and living in the UK were welcome to stay. Michael Gove led that campaign and now he’s ready to deliver Brexit”.

Costa left his post as parliamentary aide to David Mundell, the Scotland secretary, in a row over the issue in February, after which he won unanimous support for an amendment to guarantee 100% of EU citizens’ rights whatever the outcome of Brexit negotiations.

Play Video 1:03 Michael Gove says he is 'ready to deliver Brexit' – video

The MP said he had also approached the home secretary, Sajid Javid, who declared he was running for the Tory leadership on Monday, but had received correspondence saying he would not be adopting this position on EU nationals. He said the response showed Javid was “not fit to be prime minister” and had conflated the issue of immigration with the legacy of free movement rights under EU law.

In his letter to Costa, Javid said he did “completely understand the sentiment and motivations behind your proposal to further extend this open approach to citizenship”.

However, he added that “citizenship and naturalisation is and always has been a matter for individual member states and distinct from the issue of free movement rights or our membership of the EU.

“As such, we are not proposing to provide differential treatment to EEA and Swiss citizens who wish to apply for citizenship over others from outside the EEA.”