Abstract

In this chapter I explore what happens to British nationals after Brexit in relation to EU citizenship. Some Union citizens will lose their “fundamental status” in 2019: all British nationals of exclusively British nationality. The problems faced by British citizens resident in member states of the European Union after Brexit and British nationals living in the UK are in focus. In the first section I tell my own life story: the tale of an EU citizen with the view to present the highlights of the derivative status of EU citizenship. This way we can appreciate better what Brexit challenges. In the second section, focus is on the legal uncertainty afflicting British citizens turning from expats to post-European third country nationals. In the third section, I discuss why we are facing an automatic collective loss of citizenship that will affect all British nationals of exclusively British nationality, irrespective of place of residence. In the last section, I present some ideas that have come up during the negotiations and that constitute a different, yet quite peculiar constitutional eyesore that has not yet received the attention it merits, that risk turning British nationals into a lesser kind of EU citizens.