None of us feel very settled in the UK at this precise moment. Whilst politicians argue and jockey for position, us mere citizens hope that the chaos will end in not too ugly an outcome - and we thought our country was a stable place to live! So much for 'UK Independence Day', it seems more like Doomsday is approaching.

But lets not exaggerate this too much, we have it good compared to others around the globe but have somehow engineered our own crisis out of very little. The problem for the UK is that we have had it so good for a long time that in the words of Joni Mitchell 'you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone'. Just because the European Court might have occasionally made a decision that the right wing press disapproved of, this is not good reason to throw all our cards up in the air. Whatever you think about the European influence it was at worst benign, and at best positively helpful for a city like Liverpool which had a fair deal less from Westminster before European funding came along.

I was talking to a dual-qualified English-Romanian Lawyer who, with her husband, has settled here in the UK. She provides services to some of the 400,000 Romanians who have settled here, the second biggest UK-European community after Poland. When I asked how many of their community would go back, the answer was not many as Romania is going through a difficult time and has many challenges. In our business we work with many local companies who provide us with products and services. Some of these firms are owned and managed by immigrants and we certainly do not want them to leave this city.

So, what happens to those Europeans of all nationalities who are in the UK on 29th March? The government has made it clear that Europeans will have no special status in the UK and will be treated in the same way as immigrants from the rest of the world and instead of our economy having access to labour from across Europe, numbers of workers will be strictly controlled. How we will manage in the future is anyone's guess, but as for our friends already here, they can apply for Settled Status or Pre-Settled Status to protect their right to remain.

Last week the government announced that the proposed charge of £65 to obtain Settled Status is to be scrapped. Although the system seems straightforward there are bound to be problems, including gathering proof of the exercise of treaty of rights if you are an EU national and, for EU national family members, the extent of their family attachment to the EU national. 

This will be a very worrying time for many, and EU nationals should take advice on their individual circumstances. My practice is gearing up to support those who encounter problems and are ready to help. So the message is that, despite the uncertainty, if you think you will be affected you should obtain legal advice, and who better to help than my own practice the Jackson Lees Group. Unfortunately we cannot control Brexit, but we will strive to help those directly caught up in the consequences.