People's Vote March 2018, British in Europe. Photo © UserColin, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
The UK is heading to the polls on December 12 for a general election which couldn’t be more important. The Tories get a majority, and Brexit comes into force at the end of January. If they don’t, it’s a Jeremy Corbyn led Labour government, who many in the UK find equally terrifying. Never have things been so polarized in the country, and whether this election will actually solve that, or indeed anything, is completely unclear.
Speak to most Brits living in Europe about the state of the country and you’ll be greeted with apathy, exasperation and despair. However, there are groups of expats across the continent who have come together since the referendum in 2016 to protect the rights and futures of British citizens living in Europe. And the same is true of EU nationals living in the UK, another community with probably the most to lose from Brexit, but who also doesn’t have any say in it.
Ahead of the election, we wanted to find out a bit more about these groups and the sort of work they do, so we got in touch to learn some more.
First we hear from Michael Harris, a British writer and educator who lives near Madrid. After the referendum, Michael set up Eurocitizens, a Spain based group that meets with government officials in Madrid to lobby for the ring-fencing of British citizens’ rights post-Brexit. He’s also on the steering group of British in Europe, a coalition of a number of groups looking out for British citizens’ rights across the continent.
Debbie Williams also works closely with British in Europe, through her own group, Brexpats – Hear Our Voice. Its members are found in countries across the EU, and it similarly works with EU wide organizations to find answers to the main questions people have about what is going to happen to UK citizens post-Brexit.
Brexpats has also collaborated with a project in the UK called In Limbo. That’s run by Elena Remigi, an Italian living in the UK who decided to set up the project to humanize the Brexit process by sharing testimonies of EU nationals in the UK, and later UK nationals in the EU. The project has collated these stories in two books, giving Brexit a human face by showing how it has already affected people across the continent. It’s telling that the primary emotion you get from the book is betrayal.
In this week’s En Profunditat we speak about the amazing work these groups are all doing, as well as looking ahead to next week’s election in the UK, a pivotal moment in Britain’s post-Brexit history.
You can find Eurocitizens, Brexpats Hear Our Voice and In Limbo on Facebook. Do support the groups all you can and buy the books In Limbo online now.
Look out for more of our reporting on the UK general election coming up soon.
Listen back En Profunditat and our other podcasts, and make sure to like and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud or wherever you get your podcasts from.
The music on this episode is “Inspire,” “Infados” and “Lightless Dawn” by Kevin MacLeod from https://filmmusic.io License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Harry Stott.
Harry Stott is a regular contributor to the Barcelona Metropolitan covering Brexit, local political and social issues as well as the music scene. He recently received a B.A. in music from the University of Leeds, and now writes and produces radio content for a number of organizations in Barcelona and beyond. You can read more of Harry's articles here.