EU citizens in Britain are the victims of ‘political games’ and their rights must be the first item in the exit talks, the European Parliament's chief Brexit negotiator has said. Guy Verhofstadt called for the fate of those three million EU nationals, and of British ex-pats, to be settled before negotiations on the rumoured £50bn ‘divorce bill’. Mr Verhofstadt said the EU parliament would agree a resolution soon after the Article 50 exit clause is triggered in the next few weeks, which it would expect to guide those talks. Otherwise the parliament could exercise its right to vote down any eventual deal agreed between the UK and the European Commission. ‘We vote no - that is possible,’ he said. MPs recently overturned a Lords’ amendment to the Brexit Bill urging the Prime Minister to give a unilateral guarantee that EU citizens will be able to stay in Britain.