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You did not. You can immigrate to those countries via the usual application process, which is exactly what you did when you chose to live in America.

afroboy 1y ago
Try that with your name as Mohammed, not everyone has your luxury.
simonw 1y ago
Right, and moving to America took a massive amount of work. I used to be able to move to France or Portugal or Germany with almost no bureaucratic overhead at all.
- mike_hearn 1y ago
  Yes, but getting a visa was never the main overhead involved in moving to Europe. That's why in practice very few British people ever used that ability outside of retirees going to Spain, and why it didn't play a part in the debate. Some people liked the idea that they could in theory live in France or Germany, but moving to the US, Australia or Canada has always more popular for British workers despite being harder. I'm one of the few Brits that actually did move to Europe, specifically to Switzerland at a time when being in the EU didn't help, so I went through the usual immigration process. The paperwork wasn't an issue. 99% of the work was language learning and social integration. Hence why Anglophone countries get the bulk of the UK emigration.
ben_w 1y ago
What exactly do you think a "right" is? The "right to" something means an application process can't be refused by default.
- mike_hearn 1y ago
  If someone said, "I've lost the right to move to America" it would be interpreted as meaning you can't go there even if you go through the usual process that is otherwise required.
  - ben_w 1y ago
    If the word meant that, then I have had a "right" to every job in existence except for those that have birthright requirements and that requirement cannot be altered, plus all the benefits schemes that exist worldwide that aren't necessarily contingent on birthright. Do you actually use the word that way? I have yet to meet anyone who has accepted such a use. Using the word "right" in such an expansive way would be saying that I have both a right to Californian food stamps and Norwegian child benefits and a Chinese pension; as a Brit living in Germany, I assert that this is a silly use of the word "right". You can't spell "birthright" without "right". I don't have the "right" to become US president because I was not born there. And yet, changing the USA's constitution has a "usual process that is otherwise required" — the fact that it is so does not mean I can reasonably say that I have the "right" to become a president of the USA. The fact is, before Brexit, any Brit could freely travel around and relocate to the other EU countries for any reason. No visa requirements which you could fail. Student with no income? Sure. Builder needing a job, as per plot of UK comedy series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, despite low pay in this profession? Again, fine. Pensioner with no job? Also fine. Musician with expensive instruments? No need to prove you're not actually importing them to the EU. Truck driver making a delivery? Just cross the border, make sure you know which side of the road to drive on. Going from the UK to the rest of the EU used to be as easy as if you were going from England to Wales. Now, it isn't.
    - mike_hearn 1y ago
      Rights are always conditional in practice. The "right" to live in the EU comes with strings attached too: 1. You can only stay for three months. After that, at least in some states, you have to prove you can financially support yourself and family if you want to stay, i.e. you need to find a job pretty fast. 2. You can be refused if you have committed a crime. For instance this is true of Germany. It's easy to fail these requirements. However you can't lose the right to live where you're born. The reason not many people cared is that this requirement isn't much different to normal visa rules for most Brits. If you don't have a job and you move somewhere, you need to find someone to hire you fairly fast which means but you wouldn't have time to become fluent in the language unless for some reason you already were (not true of nearly all Brits). You can do it if you have specialized skills that compensate for non-fluency. But if you have specialized skills you can probably convince a company to hire you ahead of time, and that usually unlocks a visa anyway. There are edge cases where this right is useful, but there aren't that many, which is why it didn't come up much ten years ago and why so many Brits move to non-EU countries.

afroboy 1y ago

Try that with your name as Mohammed, not everyone has your luxury.

simonw 1y ago

Right, and moving to America took a massive amount of work. I used to be able to move to France or Portugal or Germany with almost no bureaucratic overhead at all.

mike_hearn 1y ago
Yes, but getting a visa was never the main overhead involved in moving to Europe. That's why in practice very few British people ever used that ability outside of retirees going to Spain, and why it didn't play a part in the debate. Some people liked the idea that they could in theory live in France or Germany, but moving to the US, Australia or Canada has always more popular for British workers despite being harder. I'm one of the few Brits that actually did move to Europe, specifically to Switzerland at a time when being in the EU didn't help, so I went through the usual immigration process. The paperwork wasn't an issue. 99% of the work was language learning and social integration. Hence why Anglophone countries get the bulk of the UK emigration.

ben_w 1y ago

What exactly do you think a "right" is? The "right to" something means an application process can't be refused by default.

mike_hearn 1y ago
If someone said, "I've lost the right to move to America" it would be interpreted as meaning you can't go there even if you go through the usual process that is otherwise required.
- ben_w 1y ago
  If the word meant that, then I have had a "right" to every job in existence except for those that have birthright requirements and that requirement cannot be altered, plus all the benefits schemes that exist worldwide that aren't necessarily contingent on birthright. Do you actually use the word that way? I have yet to meet anyone who has accepted such a use. Using the word "right" in such an expansive way would be saying that I have both a right to Californian food stamps and Norwegian child benefits and a Chinese pension; as a Brit living in Germany, I assert that this is a silly use of the word "right". You can't spell "birthright" without "right". I don't have the "right" to become US president because I was not born there. And yet, changing the USA's constitution has a "usual process that is otherwise required" — the fact that it is so does not mean I can reasonably say that I have the "right" to become a president of the USA. The fact is, before Brexit, any Brit could freely travel around and relocate to the other EU countries for any reason. No visa requirements which you could fail. Student with no income? Sure. Builder needing a job, as per plot of UK comedy series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, despite low pay in this profession? Again, fine. Pensioner with no job? Also fine. Musician with expensive instruments? No need to prove you're not actually importing them to the EU. Truck driver making a delivery? Just cross the border, make sure you know which side of the road to drive on. Going from the UK to the rest of the EU used to be as easy as if you were going from England to Wales. Now, it isn't.
  - mike_hearn 1y ago
    Rights are always conditional in practice. The "right" to live in the EU comes with strings attached too: 1. You can only stay for three months. After that, at least in some states, you have to prove you can financially support yourself and family if you want to stay, i.e. you need to find a job pretty fast. 2. You can be refused if you have committed a crime. For instance this is true of Germany. It's easy to fail these requirements. However you can't lose the right to live where you're born. The reason not many people cared is that this requirement isn't much different to normal visa rules for most Brits. If you don't have a job and you move somewhere, you need to find someone to hire you fairly fast which means but you wouldn't have time to become fluent in the language unless for some reason you already were (not true of nearly all Brits). You can do it if you have specialized skills that compensate for non-fluency. But if you have specialized skills you can probably convince a company to hire you ahead of time, and that usually unlocks a visa anyway. There are edge cases where this right is useful, but there aren't that many, which is why it didn't come up much ten years ago and why so many Brits move to non-EU countries.