Lievito madre and When You don't (have the right to) live here anymore

Lievito madre starter Day 0

Lievito Madre, Anglesey Abbey, Microscopy. Brexit and
the requirement by certain EU citizens for Comprehensive Sickness Insurance to apply for a permanent residence card in the UK.

Woke with the sun trying to peek through the curtains, it was great to have a lie in!

Started the day with preparing a Lievito madre, the Italian way to make sourdough starter. I deviated slightly from the recipe by using wholemeal flour. Flour and water were mixed in a 2:1 ratio, with honey and oil, and placed in a covered container in my home-made bread incubator at around 25 degrees C for 2 days.

Purple berries at Anglesey Abbey

Visited Anglesey Abbey with J to make use of the sun before it set. We made a few stops or the few emerging snowdrops and berries, before briskly doing the round in the bitter wind. Today, the Café’s offering looked sparse and unappealing, so bought a date and walnut cake in the NT shop and took it home for late afternoon tea.

In the evening, looked at the microscope slide that had been standing in seawater from Aberystwyth for 7 weeks. The barely visible fuzz on the slide surface showed small single celled algae, diatoms, filamentous algae and/or cyanobacteria and the first indications of green seaweed colonies. I tried photographing different views but was not happy with the results. Will have to play again another day.

I had hoped to escape any Brexit news for a day or so, till the following raised it’s ugly head again.

Cahir O’Kane, Cambridge scientist, has been keeping a finger on the pulse of how Brexit is going to affect EU nationals and passing on relevant news items. The Guardian newspaper has been following this issue for a while, and it is becoming ever clearer why my EU friends are concerned about the feasibility of staying in the UK. For two, it could be that they could be asked to leave, despite having lived here and contributing to the economy for more than five years.

From the most recent Guardian article, there is a particularly bureaucratic route to gaining UK citizenship as an EU national, as I understand it. You first have to demonstrate right to permanent residence. Currently, whilst we are in the EU, EU citizens have this. Upon exiting the EU, this right falls away and EU citizens are therefore recommended to apply for the permanent right to residence now. This is fine for those who  have been in permanent employment for the minimum 5 years in the UK. However, parent looking after children at home students and the self employed  need to have a Comprehensive Sickness Insurance - even though you are eligible for NHS treatment - to apply for permanent residency.

Of course, this is to prevent people scrounging off the state. But the unintended (or is it intended?) consequence is, that your longstanding EU national neighbour, having married a Brit, lived in the UK for donkey’s years and brought up a family together, could be asked to leave.

This is one of the key issues behind the phrase in the news – wanting reassurance that the UK Government “gives EU nationals currently residing in the UK, the right to continued residence after Brexit”.

Currently, no reassurance has been given and immigration and Brexit ministers have made a significant proportion of the 3 million EU nationals in the UK a bargaining chip.

At least it's All Quiet on the Trump Front.