Clarity On EU Citizen IDs — And Bigger Brexit Bills Ahead?

In the Brexit world, news the past several days has centered, among other things, around how citizens of the European Union (EU) will be documented and what financial impact Britain’s exit from the EU might incur.

The Home Office, reported The Guardian, has stated that EU citizens are not going to need to be subjected to a fingerprint scan via biometrics or need EU ID cards once Brexit becomes official. This announcement comes after leaked documents, as noted by the paper’s site, intimated that new ID registration rules would take effect.

The statements by the Home Office were intended to allay concerns of activists tied to Brexit (via a group known as the3million) that there would also be no need to pay for private health insurance or stay within their respective countries after Brexit takes effect. In fact, EU identification and registration would be done through digital documentation, not through a biometric fingerprint scan, said the Home Office.

Separately, the Guardian also reported that research by financial firms with roots in London (known as the City) has found that European finance capitals such as London will lose business to Singapore and New York unless there is a free trade agreement struck in Brexit’s wake.

Such an agreement, said the banks and fund managers in the report, would let firms in the U.K. and the EU offer services and products in each other’s markets without tariffs or quotas. That agreement, should it be struck, of course, would replace the single market that now exists.

And in news coming early this week, via The Independent, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has said it is “possible” that the Labour Party might offer a new referendum on the Brexit vote — in effect giving a second chance to voters to opt to stay in the EU.

Some additional financial details tied to Brexit’s cost are coming into focus as well. European Commissioner for Budget and Human Resources, Gunther Oettinger, said in a speech in Belgium on Monday (Sept. 25) that an additional £6.5 billion, annually, will be needed from European taxpayers to offset the impact to the European budget in the wake of Britain’s severance from the EU.