Britain now looks comically delusional
I HAVE massive regrets about leaving the EU, both personal and national.
I have two daughters aged 24 and 22. They grew up with Freedom of Movement as part of their plans, only to have it taken away from them by their own nation.
As a result, my eldest daughter is now living in Portugal for five years in order to get back her EU passport and the wonderful freedoms and opportunities that go with it.
My younger daughter has become a professional dancer, and as we all know the loss of freedom of movement has been disastrous for people in the arts because they can never expect to get short contracts in Europe when the employer would face all the difficulty and expense of getting visas for every single country they visit.
My younger daughter sees adverts for dance companies which say
‘EU passport holders only’. Since I have no Irish or French or German relatives, or any antecedents from any other European country, there is nothing I can do to help her.
In addition, the referendum result led to public vilification of immigrants, who are now spoken of as if they are not equal to us, are a problem, and as if we don’t want any more coming here. My daughters are immigrants, and this is terribly hurtful every single day.
In 2016 I had a job in the tourist industry which was due to start in two weeks, but they cancelled the training and the job because, following the 2016 vote, the pound had dropped so drastically that they couldn’t take on any new tour guides. It was a job I very much wanted. The drop in the value of the pound also meant that my holidays became hugely more expensive.
That is just the personal stuff!
The damage to this country is truly terrible, with all my various European friends aghast and sometimes laughing at Britain.
No intelligent, educated foreigner thinks for a moment that Britain has done a good thing, and of course there were three million EU nationals living here, believing they had every right to be here, who have been made to feel as though they are simply not wanted, even if they have the right to remain.
Britain’s reputation in the eyes of the whole of Europe is in the dirt, and it won’t recover in my lifetime. As a child I travelled around Europe and the British were so highly regarded that even as a small child I was aware of it. That has been destroyed forever by Brexit.
All my close friends voted Remain and many of them have said to me that they have lost the respect they used to feel for this country. We all used to feel rather proud of our British passports when we travelled, and our country’s reputation in the world. Now, they tell me, they feel ashamed of the ridiculous, jingoistic things which our Government is saying and which make Britain look so comically delusional.
Whether we like it or not, half this country is hoping that something can be retrieved from this tragic national disaster. I think most of us recognise that we will not be returning to the EU any time soon, but it is vital that we return to the single market and the customs union, before more people go out of business, more young people miss out on their opportunities and go to live abroad, more schoolchildren have to forego school trips, and there is more damage to our poor economy.
Elizabeth Smith Exeter