The surprise appeal by the Netherlands Government against the ruling in the Amsterdam case has shifted the priorities of what needs to be done.

The Amsterdam case is not just about British nationals living in EU27 countries, despite the way it is portrayed by the press and even by its supporters/promoters. It is because of this much wider context that The People’s Challenge can bring important perspective, knowledge and experience to both the arguments and the importance of those arguments.

When a referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union in the Amsterdam challenge was assured the primary question was about how the work we are doing and have done fitted with/complemented the 2^nd question the CJEU was going to be asked to rule on – what, if any, conditions should apply to the maintenance of EU citizenship rights when a country leaves the EU.

Now that there is an appeal against the referral the work we have planned is even more important and urgent as it may be the basis of the last line of defence on protecting the EU citizenship rights of British nationals.

We have always made the results of the work we do publicly available and we have confirmed that this will be the case with the work we are doing on how many British nationals are being ignored in the current EU/UK negotiations.  Just to be quite clear we will also be providing this information to the legal team working on the Amsterdam case.

We have already done much work on the fundamental constitutional importance of EU citizenship rights. It was this work that was pivotal, even decisive, in the “Miller” case. This work has done much to set out the limits of the UK government’s legitimate powers and reinforce Parliamentary Sovereignty over the important decisions that have to be made in deciding what is in the best interest of the U.K. & N.I.

Despite the assertion of the EU that their focus is on EU citizenship rights and the need to protect those rights for all EU citizens, the reality is that, as far as British nationals are concerned, both the EU and the UK are largely only concerning themselves with some of the rights of British nationals who will be resident in an EU27 country on exit day.

There are millions of other British nationals apart from those currently resident in EU27 countries who have shaped their lives and made important family, social and financial decisions based on their EU citizenship rights and the exercising of them.

The fact of the matter is that the draft EU/UK withdrawal treaty only provides partial protection for those British nationals who are actually resident or working in EU27 countries at the exit date; it is a very simplistic and possibly even discriminatory focus the EU & the UK have.

The identification and protection of the EU citizenship rights and therefore the British nationals at risk was one of the issues we set out in our “Milestones on the Road to Brexit” document and the reason we extended our fund-raising target from £45,000 to £75,000.

All this depends on being able to move our fund-raising beyond the £41,700 it has reached. The £75,000 target we recently set is very much the minimum we need to raise under these new circumstances. Mounting a challenge in a national court, let alone an international court, even just helping in one is an expensive process no matter whether that is in the UK, an EU member state or one of the supra-national courts such as the CJEU, ECHR etc.

Whether we mount our own challenge or work with others as we did in the “Miller” case, the principle of defending fundamental citizenship rights of British nationals and ensuring the rule of law is paramount.

We believe we can add considerable value to the challenge that is being mounted in Amsterdam, but this relies once again on people spreading the word and helping to raise the funding.

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We value your support. Just keeping track of the campaigns and challenges that have objectives that match our own takes time and effort, much of what we do costs money that we can only afford to spend with the financial support of people like you.

If you share our concerns about the work needed to promote the outcome which is in the best interests of the UK, please consider making a donation by clicking on the Gold Card image above.

Many people have contributed not once but multiple times and we know that there are practical limits on what people can do. Whether you can make another contribution or not please spread the word among your contacts and on the social media.

Our aim is to help people see what’s going on, understand what they are, or aren’t, being told, and decide what is the best outcome for the UK: an outcome in the national interest, protecting fundamental citizenship rights and ensuring Parliament and not the executive is sovereign.

There is still a long way to go and there are no guarantees about what the outcome will be. The only thing that is certain is that if we stop trying we will lose.

To help protect our fundamental rights, and support Parliament in safeguarding them, please send us a donation so we can maintain our campaign and make your voice heard.

Please share this article as widely as you can, thank you very much for your support.

Published by Grahame Pigney on behalf of The People’s Challenge Ltd.