EU citizens’ residence rights after Brexit: the CSI justice campaign, a grassroots initiative by the3million

In the aftermath of the 2016 June referendum, the right to live in the UK for over 3 million EU citizens seemed compromised. Surprisingly enough, one of the requirements entailed having to subscribe to Comprehensive Sickness Insurance (CSI) during periods of professional inactivity, causing a widespread panic among EU migrant communities. For some EU citizens, CSI became a discriminatory barrier to permanent residency and citizenship in particular for people with low income, students, carers, women, stay-at-home parents, the self-sufficient, the retired or disabled people. Therefore, it became a battle for pro-European grassroots organisations, such as the3million, which launched the “CSI justice campaign” in 2022. This paper aims at discussing the psychological impact and the consequences the CSI requirement had on EU citizens who felt anxious and insecure facing challenges and disruption to gain access to their rights. In addition, we will try to evaluate to what extent the3million campaign participated in clarifying the cumbersome and burdensome process of the permanent residency application, but also in condemning the Conservative governments’ callous approach to immigration and the Home Office’s failure to communicate information about CSI in the media.