I was too young to vote in the referendum. I’m incredibly angry about having lost freedom of movement. If the UK by some miracle rejoins the EU I will make the jump to Europe the very same day. Still looking for a way out in the meantime.
The UK just keeps kicking young people down. The boomers voting against our interests are whipping us into working to pay for their triple locked pensions.
> On December 15, 2025 Canada enacted "Bill C-3", granting citizenship to people born before Dec. 15, 2025 with ANY level of Canadian ancestry they can document. (It used to be a "first generation limit")
> ancestors domiciled in the former colony of Newfoundland are still considered as Canadian born or naturalized for the purpose of citizenship by descent.
> December 15, 2025 Canada enacted "Bill C-3", granting citizenship to people born before Dec. 15, 2025 with ANY level of Canadian ancestry they can document. (It used to be a "first generation limit")
This is misleading.
Outside the first generation, the Canadian parent must have spent 3 years cumulatively in Canada prior to the birth, otherwise the child will not be a citizen. That's not a threshold you're likely to meet with a few holiday trips here and there.
I’m not sure Canada is doing well right now. Young people are really struggling and we are dealing with housing crisis. There is also trade conflicts with the United States.
An anti immigration sentiment has also taken over half the country due to rising costs and shortages, which is trickling down to various aspects of the life here.
The harsh weather is not pleasant either. Ironically, young Canadians are looking to move elsewhere.
You have a way out... you are allowed to live and work in Ireland. Stay there for a few years (I forget how many) and apply for an Irish ( = EU) passport
Yes, it’s a path I have considered/am considering, but it’s a 5 year commitment. I’m in my mid 20s and want to be able to travel without worrying if my residency application will be jeopardised.
The years where I want the freedom of movement the most will have passed by then.
25 you are definitely in time to move! That's exactly when I moved from Italy to Canada and kicked off my life there.
20 is plenty young, what locks you in is usually kids.
Friends are a pain to leave behind, but that's a constant.
> I'm incredibly angry about having lost freedom of movement.
I think this was indicative of much of the thinking on both sides of the debate though; focusing tightly on a single, subjective aspect for or against.
"Why the EU is important / abhorrent to me right now?" rather than something like "What is the anticipated future nature of the EU and what does that mean for the UK?"
I agree with you but the other side's arguments were pretty weak.
The Leave side was for immigration control (which has not materially changed, we still have an influx of small boats, but have made it harder for educated, hard working people to get in), and mythical funding for the NHS to the tune of £350m a week which never happened.
I feel for you. I moved away to New Zealand long before brexit and then did move to Europe for awhile and freedom of movement made that easier than otherwise. However, if you're mid 20s now you don't need it to move places, you can easily get working visas for EU countries or Australia or NZ or Canada, and there are paths then to citizenship. Everywhere has it's troubles of one kind or another. I grew up in the UK and while I have plenty of good memories, I feel like it's a miserable place when you're trying to get on in the world. And the pay for IT professional is atrocious.
What makes you believe you have lost freedom of movement, I’ve met British people all over Europe. If I can meet a Russian living in Switzerland in Amsterdam and a British couple that took the ferry from the island, why are you not free to “move”?
On a related note; do you enjoy what America is right now? Because centralizing power and handing your country’s (American states are/were/should be essentially countries) sovereignty and self/determination to Brussels is how you get this, become the US of Europe, the next iteration in the centralized war machine of the psychopathic, narcissistic parasitic ruling class. When you lack diversity through separate, unique, district, and sovereign countries where people have oversight and control and can push back against horrible ideas and actions, you end up like us.
I’ve always found it unfortunate that the EU did not become a legitimate, constitutional form of the USA like it was before the Civil War that created this centralized authoritarian fake federal state that we know today. It would have been awe inspiring and really could have become the example for the rest of the world. Instead, the current version of the EU is strangling the whole continent.
The EU is right now talking about becoming a great military force to fight Russia. That’s the kind of movement you’re advocating for, my friend.
You think young people are kept down now, wait till they’re laying in some muddy battlefield as chopped meat or hiding from drone swarm or hypersonic missile attacks on their cities due to the belligerence of the EU aristocrats with no clothes.
>What makes you believe you have lost freedom of movement
Uh, the fact that I cannot stay in Europe for more than 90 days in a 180 day period without a visa?
As for all that other rubbish, every European city I’ve been to lives better than the people where I live in London. That’s proof enough for me that the EU is working.
That is one of the most idiotic things I have read. Obviously it's not impossible to travel for them anymore, but freedom of movement referred clearly to the rights of free movement between EU States as a citizen for Work, Education, Travel and Business
Obviously they can still travel to Europe, but they will need an ETIAS Visa Waiver in the future, instead of just going, they can't move for work and studying just as easy without applying for Visa/Permits and they don't have the same rights and access to services as Citizens of a country.
> The EU is right now talking about becoming a great military force _to fight Russia_ (emphasis mine)
Correction: to not have to fight Russia. The EU falling apart is Putin's wet dream because he's very afraid of a confrontation with the whole bloc, and wants to subjugate the small European countries piecemeal (and yes, on their own, they would have to submit or face missiles/drones or, even worse, human meatwave attacks by a foe that has been whipping its populace into a death cult for decades for exactly that eventuality).
You really confirm my theory that we’ve had AGI for a long time now as you output the system’s propaganda with no thought of your own. You are effectively meat AI, trained and tuned.
>separate, unique, district, and sovereign countries that can push back against horrible ideas and actions, you end up like us.
The separate, unique sovereign countries are the ones with the horrible ideas and actions. See Victor Orban's Hungary. The whole point is to not let some goulash mussolini control European affairs.
> The EU is right now talking about becoming a great military force to fight Russia. That’s the kind of movement you’re advocating for, my friend.
Would you rather... not be able to fight Russia? It's not like the EU is the one with the invasion plans and threats, they're just preparing for the changing world order.
You really don't see the inherent contradiction and disastrous concept inherent to your mentality? It's inherently authoritarian and supremacist, i.e., you or the ideological cluster you believe you are a member of; knows best and knows infallibly, perfectly so, what exactly needs to be done for any and all people, at all times everywhere equally? ... thus, there is no need for such a thorn in your eye as the elected leader of Hungary Victor Orban... you know better, as you repeat like a trained robot.
It is oddly concerning, scary, and amusing at the same time that you are totally unaware of your own "Mussolini" tendencies of imposing your will or those ideas you have been trained to repeat and parrot on others. Why does everyone, everywhere, in all countries need to bow to the will you have been trained to parrot? Why can't people of other countries decide and do other things?
You really don't see the problem in that?
Have you even ever visited Hungary? Do you speak Hungarian? Do you live there and are culturally invested through generations of ancestors there? Why do you care so much about what Hungarians do in Hungary? What happened to democracy?
Why then if none of those apply to you, would you have any right, let alone care or concern with what Hungarians want, do or who they elect outside of you simply being a useful idiot for the central power in Brussels that commands you to really really care about Hungary's elected leaders?
It's literally no different than the fools we have her in the USA who really really care about combatting and countering and bombing and invading Iran (and Iraq before) ... which has absolutely zero actual, direct national interest implications or effects on the USA in any way. You are quite literally just a "dumb American" now as you morph into the grotesque that is modern America.
> Have you even ever visited Hungary? Do you speak Hungarian? Do you live there and are culturally invested through generations of ancestors there? Why do you care so much about what Hungarians do in Hungary? What happened to democracy?
Yes. The part of Austria I live in used to be Hungary, it's still tightly linked to it culturally and through blood ties. My grandparents spoke Hungarian at home.
Difference is, it prospered, while Hungary proper is poor, run-down and has an antisemitic dictator. Hungarians are the cheap labor prevalent in Eastern Austria, similar to Mexicans close to the border in the US. They clean our toilets, because their government sucks.
I don't want that fate for my Hungarian brethren. Don't talk as if I didn't know, when it's clear it's you that doesn't.
It is you who is the useful idiot for fascists worldwide, out of some misguided sense of nationalism or whatever. The nation state is the obstacle to be overcome. It is what's keeping people back.
Freedom of movement applies to the territory of a country [1]. Sorry you learned the hard way. Historically you get rights when you pick up a service weapon. Everything else is privilege granted by others.
[1]: Gilbert, Nomadic Peoples and Human Rights (2014), p. 73: "Freedom of movement within a country encompasses both the right to travel freely within the territory of the State and the right to relocate oneself and to choose one's place of residence".
The UK just keeps kicking young people down. The boomers voting against our interests are whipping us into working to pay for their triple locked pensions.