Thread for documenting effects of Brexit in your own situations

So if one wants to be in France for B-day, what is the best way to get there? Will want to have a car, so flying and passenger train is out. Will the roads to Dover already be crazy in the week leading up to it? When does Operation Stack kick in?

I'm not sure I'd advise it as a course of action (says he, after inviting a bunch of people from Ireland and parts foreign to a wedding in mid-May, and whose hand is currently reaching towards the button marked 'bricking it')

So I've got a conference in Paris at the tail-end of March and am scheduled to return on the 30th. Perhaps I'll be barred from entering the UK as a EU national – I'm very curious to see what'll happen.

Well I just called the Home Office and their answer was basically 'We don't know. Anything's possible in these ludicrous times.' Truly inspiring.

Not sure what's going to happen to some of my students, some were between jobs while they were learning English.

still be able to live and work in the rest of the EU post-Brexit by sponging off my partner’s status.

i would be interested in hearing more about the mechanics of this, SV. is it simply that places you wish to live and work in will allow you to do so because you are there with your partner? or something more complicated?

^ narc

Xp, yes, that’s correct. Non-EU partners of EU citizens can apply for an EEA Family Permit in any EU country as long as the EU national is there for a purpose considered valid (work, study, etc) iirc.

Interesting, thanks! Not narc-ing, promise. Simply in a similar situation as you and reasonably desperate to get any kind of concrete information about what is happening.

In that case consult an expert as I’m absolutely not qualified to be giving advice!

That is my understanding of how it works at present, though, and irrespective of the UK’s future relationship with the EU, the worst case scenario would be similar rights to, for example, the American partner of a Belgian living in Spain.

https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/residence/family-residence-rights/non-eu-wife-husband-children/index_en.htm

Kfb, read this page for a quick overview & cross reference with the immigration policy of whatever country you’re living in. Do you mind telling us about your circumstances? If you’re British, some countries have already made assurances.

Can't be arsed with renewing my Portuguese passport. This is my home, for better or worse.

Would you ever consider moving back? If given the chance, I'd love to spend a few years in Portugal fwiw.

Sorry should 'back' turn out to be an inaccurate assumption btw.

Funnily enough three of my cousins used the Portuguese connection to make passports and move here in the last three years. All have jobs and are settled enough. One got married to an Irish woman last year.

Another is planning a move but I somehow doubt that will happen now.

xxp = as it happens I am not Portuguese, just have the parental connection (Brazilian but not going back right now). I love Portugal and would consider going to Porto someday. But really, this is home for me and I want to fight for it - whatever that means.

Fair enough, I was just curious. It's sweet that you've got the option, remote though it may be.

Funnily enough just came across this essay on Pessoa, depression at the world and moving from the UK to Lisbon

https://lithub.com/living-fernando-pessoas-dreamlife-in-lisbon/

Many of the Portuguese people I’ve spoken to attribute this heaviness to the brutal dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar, who maintained a suffocating grip on the country for over four decades through what’s known in Portugal as the “Three F’s”: Football, Fatima (Catholicism), and Fado.

In passing I love the idea that the shorthand for Catholicism in Portugal would be the name of a daughter of Prophet Muhammad!

That is my understanding of how it works at present, though, and irrespective of the UK’s future relationship with the EU, the worst case scenario would be similar rights to, for example, the American partner of a Belgian living in Spain.

great, thanks! that was my understanding too—I just wanted to check in case there was something I'd missed. "desperate" may have been over-selling my actual situation, I meant purely that I'm frustrated (as are not doubt a lot of people) about the utter lack of clarity coming from the UK gov about what's going on for UK citizens abroad. I'm hoovering up any and all information that I can.

Kfb, read this page for a quick overview & cross reference with the immigration policy of whatever country you’re living in. Do you mind telling us about your circumstances? If you’re British, some countries have already made assurances.

thanks for that link! my own circumstances are slightly, er... confusing. I'm a uk citizen (for my sins, apparently) that nominally resides (legally & fully documented) in an EU country but am self-employed and selling consultancy services to another EU country. my host country has assured my residence rights already, but I'm nervous about my status selling said services. to the best of my knowledge my "company" is a fully-fledged EU thing and so shouldn't be affected but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

my partner is a national of my host country, but we aren't married (and have actively been trying to avoid it). the further wrinkle is that for other reasons we are currently living temporarily in london, until august/september. I have no idea how this might or might not affect anything this year.

to contribute more directly to the thread, my own direct concrete effect of Brexit currently is that I have booked a flight next week to go and swap my UK driving licence for my host country's version on the advice released recently, despite previous EU commission documents suggesting that this won't be necessary.

kfb i am feeling that post, and your other posts, and the bewilderment.

i'm pretty straightforward relative to that - a non-EU spouse of an EU citizen living in the UK. i have an EEA-4 in my passport which says in capital letters "permanent residence card" yet which also says "expires 20 april 2022" :/ it's a uk vignette, but based on a right flowing from the UK's membership of the EU. shrug_smiley.gif

more worryingly, i have two kids, born here in the UK, both with american and french passports but not a UK passport (y because neither parent is british). what happens when they get older? want to vote? my instinct is do nothing, wait til they're older, sort it out later. there are a lot of scary newspaper articles about people getting royally fucked with this approach, but we really have done everything right. i came here on a fiancee visa, not a tourist visa, etc.

and we're like fully ready to apply for this free residence permit thing but like... where is it? when's it going to be ready? like literally brexit day apparently, or the day before??

Is it an expiry date like a passport has, which can be renewed?

yes, it is, except.. what if that route doesn't exist any more for to because breggzit

"EEA4? no we don't do those any more, sir"

You’ve been a resident here for over 15 years, might be worth a punt on British ILR (or ask work or your MP).

After that long can’t you apply for citizenship? Not that being a citizen, subject or whatever of the UK is a particular appealing thought. (I’m guess expensive and painful as well)

Expensive. The charges started to apply in 2003, and I’m so glad my ILR started in 1995.

Yeah it's about a grand, and if you fuck up part of the application and have to reapply you don't get your money back. I guess i should have done it before now but I NEVER NEEDED TO MASSIVE_SHRUGGIE_GRIN_BIGGER_THAN_THE_SUN

sympathies for all ilxors and those connected to em anxious abt the most shakey and direct possible effects of the shitshow

im thinking i should encourage mrs mac to investigate dual citizenship or w/e simply for the likely benefits in travel if nothing else. any reason why she shouldnt, or any other thoughts?

yeah i married a half brit btw idk if ive kept that pseudo under wraps til now but i guess brexits rly bringing the light to some ugly truths or w/e

yeatsian possibilities of half-brit to be examined later

My lesson from this all is collect as many passports and residencies as you can, when you can. I wish I’d done something to get Italian residency when I might have been able to.

ugh, horrible. close colleague who has lived in Spain for twenty years, has just found she didn't fill in a bit of paper six years ago, and could be in danger of not being able to claim citizenship. directly caused by the ruptures of brexit. it really has created life-upheaving psychological turmoil for a lot of people.

ugh, horrible. close colleague who has lived in Spain for twenty years, has just found she didn't fill in a bit of paper six years ago, and could be in danger of not being able to claim citizenship. directly caused by the ruptures of brexit. it really has created life-upheaving psychological turmoil for a lot of people.

this pretty much happened to me. i dropped the ball when i first moved, didn't realise i should have registered because my naive brain thought "but EU". had i done the right thing initially i would be holding a different passport right now. sympathies for your colleague, fizzles. surely there's some way of proving her residence to the authorities, even if it's not the official bit of paper?

not sure _kfb. we're hoping so. father was spanish and basically she's spent most of her working life there. but it sounds like it's going to be at the very least a massive pain, and will produce a lot of stress and uncertainty.

yeah, definitely. the premise of this thread is certainly interesting but maybe glides over what i've observed as the real consequences of the ongoing brexit shambles in myself and others: the psychological effects of several years of total, unmitigated uncertainty and seemingly no scope for anyone to be able to position themselves to reduce or mitigate their personal fallout before the whole sorry ordeal actually happens (at which point it's too late anyway). for all the talk of may etc playing games of 5-dimensional chess i feel like i've been doing that exact thing for years, too. and i'm exhausted by it.

not sure _kfb. we're hoping so. father was spanish and basically she's spent most of her working life there. but it sounds like it's going to be at the very least a massive pain, and will produce a lot of stress and uncertainty.

― Fizzles, Monday, February 4, 2019 4:05 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

im p sure if you have a spanish parent you're eligible for spanish citizenship?

i’ll be sure to let her know.

I lived in France for over a decade. Moved home a few years ago to look after ageing parents, but with the definite intention of eventually returning to live in France. Then Brexit happened. I'm kicking myself I didn't apply for French citizenship while I was living there, it just never occurred to me that it would be necessary. Now looking into the possibility of an Irish passport, as I had an Irish grandfather.

possibly not the exact thread but was just chatting with a musician friend and i wondered whether any UK people have any specific knowledge/experience of this situation that might be relevant here?

I should really give some attention to releasing some of the backlog of other stuff mentioned in that email, although that’s been rendered slightly daunting by the fallout of Brexit - in terms of can I still get CDs manufactured outside of the UK and likewise hope to sell any beyond the bounds of this country without incurring customs/VAT nightmares?No-one seems all that clear on how bad it actually is...

Last night I talked to a friend (originally from the Middle East) who said things like: "after the Brexit vote I didn't recognise this country ... I haven't felt the same since ... this isn't the Britain I knew ... it's the worst thing that's happened to Britain in my lifetime".

This seems to me quite a standard sort of (liberal?) line.

But I reflected and said that I did not agree with it.

I did not vote for Brexit and I am not convinced that it is good policy. I think it was often voted for for bad reasons, and it has been advanced and pursued by very bad people.

But I do not think it is the worst thing that either the UK state, or the UK people, have done in the last 40 or 50 years.

I think my #1 contender for that would be the Iraq War.

And if you think "the British people are decent and moderate and I can't believe this jingoistic vote", you may have missed the Con election victories of 1983 and 1987, among others.

Compared to several other policies - including "austerity" (as well as war) - Brexit arguably has been a peaceful process and has not killed or physically hurt people. (This does not mean that I endorse Nigel Farage's false occlusion of the murder of a politician during the Brexit campaign - but I do not think that that murder was intrinsic to leaving the EU.)

Again, I do not personally think Brexit is a good policy. But I think that the view that it is worse than all these other things is, in fact, an ideological delusion.

Some things that might be worse than Brexit:

Iraq War
Afghanistan War
(other wars)
Miners' strike
Privatizations from c.1980 to the present, including rail
Sell-off of council houses without replacement, making it harder for people to find homes
University policy esp on fees
Ecological damage / contribution to climate breakdown (though I don't have figures for this)

I conclude: It might be accurate to say something like:

"Brexit appears to be a bad policy, voted for for bad reasons, and executed by bad people. It could make a bad situation even worse.

However, it is not at all exceptional in UK policy, but is in fact quite a *typical* instance of bad and damaging policy, executed for bad reasons, in the last 40 years, and actually so far minor in its effects compared to some of the even worse policies."

how does anyone articulate anything in this area given how thoroughly enclosed it all feels and how even the things in it that are real are embedded in this sort of discursive sludge of ideological bullshit so many levels deep

everything in the above post is true but there's no denying brexit has materially made everything much worse both in its immediate wake and apparently indefinitely and as much for its symbolic / ideological flexibility as the actual legal bullshit it's means supposed to mean on paper at any given moment (ie it's impossible to know where it ends and the general rightward fashy trend begins). "remain" should be considered part of the larger catastrophe of "brexit" here (I make no sense to people when I try to say this irl) which is in many ways a fairly typical british catastrophe but I wouldn't want to understate the catastrophe part

or the british part- a lot of people invoke notions of imperial decline but it rarely seems to go beyond metaphor & symbolism partly bc i suspect liberal & frankly left attachment to the british imperial project is way too real to seriously interrogate in a way that would actually maybe break through some of this mystification