Thread by @uk_domain_names

Seems to be a lot of confusion around the rights of UK citizens so I'll have a stab at explaining...

Before Brexit, we could have lived and worked in any EU country, including the right to move from one EU country to another, while keeping the same rights.

The Withdrawal Agreement provides for a few things:
A) the right to stay living in a EU27 country indefinitely (though may be conditions, just as there were before Brexit)
B) the right to move to an EU27 country before 31 Dec 2020, in which case A) applies

What changes is, the right to live is no longer portable across the whole EU.

So say you live in Spain or move to Spain before 31 Dec 2020. You can keep living in Spain after 31 Dec 2020 under the same conditions as before. But you couldn't just up sticks to e.g. Germany.

That covers UK citizens who end up in a EU27 country before the WA deadline expires. They can stay but not move.

Once the WA deadline has passed, UK citizens not already living in the EU will be treated the same by EU countries as other non-EU citizens are. We're not special.

Hope that helps!

TL/DR summary...
- Before Brexit: rights in all EU countries
- Before WA deadline: rights in one EU country, preserved past deadline
- After WA deadline: no rights

NOTE: that covers everything except Ireland/NI which is complex and too long to go into here.

Note: our situation and the situation of EU citizens isn't symmetric because they're from countries still in the EU, and we're not.

So EU citizens have the right to move to the UK and/or stay living in the UK before the WA deadline. If they do, they can stay beyond the deadline.

But they can also move subsequently anywhere in the EU, because what do you know that's what being an EU citizen means.

What they can't do is:
1) live in the UK for a while until after the WA deadline
2) move to an EU country (either their own, or others)
3) move to the UK again

Of course they can leave the UK for short periods (eg holidays, business trips etc.) and still preserve their right to live here. But if they move away from the UK for an extended period, and it's after the WA deadline, they can't come back to live in UK under same conditions.

One consequence of all the above is that UK citizens won't be able to live in one EU country & work in a different EU country after the end of the transition period (e.g. live in France, work in Luxembourg) because their rights end at the border of the EU country they settled in.

And finally: this doesn't mean that UK citizens can *never* move to the EU, or EU citizens to the UK, after the WA deadline passes.

But to do so they'll have to fulfill the same visa conditions in future as people from outside the EU did before Brexit happened.