News of a leaked Home Office document on Britain’s EU immigration policy after Brexit caught me by surprise early on Tuesday morning. Before rushing off to work, I experienced the now all-too-familiar feeling of futile frustration and increasing disillusionment with a country that, while I was growing up in Denmark, I always admired and dreamed of living in.
It is true. I am an EU migrant. It took me 25 years before I identified as one: my white, northern European appearance, easily pronounceable first name and generic English accent mean that for the most part I can move quietly through London unnoticed.
I arrived in the UK in 2009 to study for an MA in literature, planning to settle in the country afterwards. I came with good intentions. However, I decided to launch my bid at a new life at the height of the recession, and subsequently struggled (as so many of my British fellow postgraduates did) to find a footing in the job market. I floated between low-paying jobs and little-to-no-paying positions in start-up companies, while telling myself that I wanted to stay and make it work. Eventually I gravitated towards another MA. This time I chose to study British history – partly for better job opportunities and partly to indulge my interest in the politics and culture of the place that I had now lived in for four years. After 2013, the recession finally seemed to be easing and I found work first as a researcher and subsequently as a copywriter.
Then, in late June 2016, Brexit suddenly became a reality. As the shocking result morphed into “Brexit means Brexit” and “No deal is better than a bad deal”, the reality started to dawn on those of us helplessly caught in the crossfire. We were no longer welcome. Fellow migrants around me began to look for ways to become more British on paper, while others remained in a state of desperation, hoping that somehow a lasting future would still be possible in the country.
What the leaked paper appears to suggest is that Brexit will see EU migrants treated as unwelcome, temporary visitors, hired to do a job for a set time before being asked to leave again. As a copywriter, I am not sure where this places me. I neither save jobs nor build bridges in my daily life, and I am fairly confident that despite paying in more in taxes than I take out, I will still be considered an undesirable immigrant. My passion for PG Wodehouse quips, Goon Show jokes and Britpop songs won’t be considered of any value. Nor will my knowledge about British history and politics be deemed relevant to the Home Office; they might send me a polite, passive-aggressive letter one fine post-Brexit day asking me to quietly leave the country.
My girlfriend, a fellow EU migrant – who, as a senior medical student, must face the further injustice of relentless NHS cuts – might be judged to be a more valuable asset to benefit “existing residents”. However, she too could ultimately be denied a future in this country – forcing her out after five years would mean the loss of her skillset, too.
It is the most vulnerable who will pay the price once the drawbridge to Europe is pulled up and the “keep calm and keep out” sign is put up. At a time when politicians can go from talking about the burden of a growing elderly population to decrying young and skilled immigrants for trying to settle in the country, with no understanding that the latter group could aid the former, it seems like us “outsiders” are simply used as a convenient scapegoat. We can only guess which of us will be the next to blame once the current government runs out of more socially acceptable targets.