LAUSR

I would like to congratulate Adele waters for her very informative and disturbing Comment in last week’s issue (VR, May 6, 2017, vol 180, p 432). The facts speak for themselves: if Eu nationals living in the uK are stopped from working in the uK, then if applied to veterinary surgeons, the consequences for animal welfare and public health will be catastrophic; I can only imagine the impact that another foot-and-mouth disease outbreak would have with a severe shortage of manpower. Irrespective of the economic impacts, I feel ashamed that my fellow veterinary surgeons, who are doing an excellent job contributing to animal welfare and public health, are living under the shadow of being expelled from the uK together with their families, in many cases having lived and worked for many years in the uK. For example, one of the veterinary surgeons featured in the News item on this topic in the same issue of Veterinary Record had done so since 1994 (VR, May 6, 2017, vol 180, pp 434-435). I fear that it will not be resolved satisfactorily. on october 19, 2016, there was a debate in Parliament proposing that all Eu citizens currently working in the uK should have the right to continue to work and live in the uK after we exit the Eu. My MP, who is an enthusiastic ‘Brexiteer’, voted against it, despite me sending him the details of the potential consequences similar to those described in the article. He assumed the ‘moral high ground’, by informing me that, since the proposal was tabled by opposition parties in the House of Commons, he voted against it. I am pleased that one of his fellow MPs from an adjacent constituency voted in favour.