> Should Prime Minster May Pledge That Eu Citizens Can Stay In Uk After Brexit?
Yes.
People's lives should not be used a bargaining chip.
I find it hard to believe that nobody has challenged the simplistic notion that you trade one thing for another.
We can easily pledge right now that EU citizens can stay in the UK after Brexit. That shows leadership and moral strength. We're the ones that have created this situation, after all, by voting to leave. We have to take responsibility for that action.
After we trigger Article 50 and enter negotiations, we can put the status of our citizens abroad top of the agenda. Given that we have already been generous to EU citizens, we should have no trouble negotiating our citizens' status - especially, as NJ pointed out, the idea of forced repatriation ... it just is not going to happen.
But, even given our generosity, suppose we didn't get our way on our citizens? We'd know what we were in for. We could play tough on every other point of negotiation. And we'd have the negotiating high ground with both the EU and the rest of the world.
The point is, we don't need to trade tit for tat, so simplistically. The very fact we're sitting back and equivocating on this makes us look petty and is setting us up for a tougher set of negotiations than there needs to be.