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According to the latest figures, 3.3 million EU nationals currently live in the UK.

In July last year, hard on the heels of the Brexit vote, a motion calling for a guarantee of their rights was passed in the House of Commons by 245 votes to two.

But the vote was not binding on the UK Government, which argued that it would be a mistake to guarantee the rights of EU nationals in the UK without similar concessions for UK nationals living elsewhere in the EU (of whom there are approximately 1.2 million).

Ten months further down the line, Theresa May’s Tory Government remains obdurately stuck in this position.

Who is to ‘give way’, as they see it, first?

The issue does not simply present a dilemma for politicians; it is also a source of extreme anxiety and uncertainty which fills the daily lives of thousands of people.

Many have lived and worked in the UK for decades, are married to British citizens and have British children, but when they fill in their 85-page application form for permanent citizenship some of them have already received ‘prepare to return to your own country’ letters from the Home Office, on the basis of the technicality that they had not taken out private health insurance when they first moved there.

Who knew that they had to?

Here in the Isle of Man, we have EU nationals working in our health service, our finance and hospitality sectors, and in service and other industries. We count them amongst our friends and neighbours.

But EU nationals amongst the residents of the Isle of Man have no more rights than those in the UK.

We are entirely governed by the UK Government in this regard, but why should Tynwald not make at least a gesture of goodwill by passing a declaratory resolution, ‘That the Isle of Man Government wishes to guarantee Manx-resident EU citizens full rights to remain on the terms under which they currently live here’?

Alas, this would carry no legal weight, but it would at least demonstrate that the Isle of Man is capable of showing more human decency than the current rulers at Westminster.

Valerie Cottle

Willow Terrace,

Douglas