Campaigners for the rights of EU citizens in the UK have predicted “utter chaos” in Britain after Theresa May vowed to stop freedom of movement for all Europeans coming to the country next March.

Activists in Europe campaigning for the rights of Britons said they were “horrified” by the prime minister’s statement in China on Wednesday, saying it showed she did not understand that everything she planned for EU citizens would have a reciprocal impact on 1.2 million British citizens in Europe.

“I think many of us, British living in Europe, are horrified at the ongoing abominable treatment of EU citizens in the UK. This will only contribute further to them and us being fair game for abuse,” said Debra Williams, the head of Brexpats, a campaign group based in the Netherlands.

Rights campaigners have been quietly furious over declarations in recent weeks by Conservative MPs, including Dominic Raab, that the deal on EU citizens has been done, when several issues are yet to be resolved including key points such as freedom of movement and family reunification rights.

Williams said: “She didn’t have to say anything right now, but chose to put the knife in just as negotiations recommence.

“And what of us? We are seemingly on our own and will have to take our chances, abandoned by the government of our birth country. Jointly we are over 4 million people who, through no fault of our own, have been relegated to the second or third division in the citizenship stakes and left to languish.”



EU citizens in the UK are equally horrified. They say without a registration system in place employees, hospitals, social welfare and immigrations officials will have no way of distinguishing between those who have been in the country legally up to 29 March 2019 and new arrivals. May’s plan will also hit anyone leaving and returning to the country on holidays or business.



Nicolas Hatton, the co-founder of The3million campaign group for Europeans in the UK, said it would create “utter chaos” for EU citizens living in the UK.



The government has signalled it will introduce a new system giving EU citizens “settled status” in the UK.

The3million has previously said it is opposed to settled status and does not want the Home Office, as envisaged by May, to have anything to do with the administration of the new system because of its tendency to make errors.

In the last year the Home Office has mistakenly threatened to deport more than 100 EU citizens and the Guardian has exposed other errors including refusing applications for permanent residency cards to EU citizens, even though under EU law they were entitled to be in the country.

British in Europe, a campaign group for British nationals in the EU, said its members felt abandoned by May.

“Every time Theresa May rejects an EU proposal on citizens’ rights she has to remember that it has direct repercussions on the rights and lives of 1.2 million British people living on continental Europe. And she is also slamming more doors shut for young British people in the UK itself,” said Jane Golding, a lawyer living in Germany, who chairs the group.

Both The3million and British in Europe will meet MEPs on Thursday to discuss the matter. They will also meet Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament’s Brexit negotiator, who has said MEPs will veto any deal that denies rights to EU citizens on both sides of the Channel.

Williams said: “The PM is trying to have her cake and eat it and is presumably deliberately confusing the withdrawal phase with the implementation phase talks. The four freedoms are indivisible.

“If the UK wants free movement of capital, services and goods during the implementation period, then the corollary has to be free movement of people – quite apart from the fact that it seems dubious that the UK could have the mechanisms in place to do anything else during that period. Citizens should be treated on a par with goods, services and capital – if not better, on moral grounds.”