Brexit Brits Abroad

For Zoe Adams Green ‘The EU was my oyster’. Joining Michaela down the line from Italy, she describes her love affair with Europe, and her experiences moving around the EU seeking work and latterly starting a family, opportunities that will be out of reach for future generations of British citizens once they lose their rights to Freedom of Movement.  As a campaigner for citizens’ rights through her work for British in Europe, she explains the potential far-reaching consequences of Brexit for the British citizens who have made their homes and lives in the EU-27.    Zoe Adams Green is a translator and a member of British in Europe’s steering group. You can find out more about British in Europe and their legal advocacy work on their website https://britishineurope.org     

British migration to the Spanish coastline is only part of the story about British emigration to Spain. In this episode Michaela is joined down the line by Michael Harris, British in Europe steering committee member, founder of Eurocitizens, who has been living in Madrid for close to 40 years. He shares his migration story, from fleeing Thatcher’s Britain to living in Spain in the 1980s, the conditions and circumstances which shaped this. He draws out his understanding of what it means to be European and how this overlaps with other identities, and the importance of campaigning for and defending the rights of European citizens.

A lesser known story of British migration to the EU is how it interplays with social mobility. In this episode, Michaela is joined by Fiona Godfrey, co-chair of British in Europe, a resident of Luxembourg to bust the myth that British citizens living in Europe are wealthy and originate in the south England. They discuss her migration biography from Barnsley to Luxembourg, an intimate family history of the precariousness of citizenship rights, and the multiple challenges of advocating for the rights of British citizens living in the EU.

We’re travelling to Poland today, as Michaela talks with Steve Davies, who is studying for his PhD in Sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences. From the fall of the Berlin Wall to Brexit, Steve introduces us to a lesser known story of intra-EU mobility: the migration and settlement of British citizens in Poland. He highlights how Poland’s history, its position within the EU shapes migration and British experiences of life there; and reflects on how British-Polish families, a success of European integration, navigate migration, transnational relationships and Brexit together.     You can read Steve’s reflections on British Experiences of Coronavirus and Brexit in Poland: https://researchingbrexit.wordpress.com/2020/05/26/british-experiences-of-coronavirus-and-brexit-in-poland/ 

Recorded earlier this year, in the episode Michaela talks with Lisa in France. In her thirties and married to a French man, she talks about what the EU has meant for her and her life. Moving within Europe as a student and in the first stages of her career, she eventually settled in France with her husband. But this was never the firm plan, just the outcome of changing jobs and personal circumstances. And there were moments when moving to the UK might also have been on the cards, including in the lead up to Brexit. Living in Europe post-Brexit, Lisa explains that her British identity remains important to her but despite Britain no longer being in the EU, she will always feel European.    *We had some technical difficulties recording this episode, and so the sound quality is not up to our usual standards!

In the wake of the Brexit referendum, British citizens living across Europe started to come together in an unprecedented way, concerned about what Brexit might mean for their future legal status. In this episode, Michaela is joined by Jane Golding, co-chair of British in Europe to talk about the grassroots legal advocacy work on the future rights of British citizens living in the EU26 that they have been doing since the Brexit referendum. They discuss the movements pan-European journey from the Referendum to the present, the struggles for citizens’ rights and ongoing concerns about the implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement.

It’s the second of this week’s double-bill to mark the release of our latest reports! Michaela and Karen discuss the report drawing across three years of researching Brexit in the lives of Britons living in France. They talk about making sense of the ongoing uncertainty that Brexit has introduced to the lives of many Britons in France, and what this might tell us about how the negotiations and their impacts on the human lives at the core of citizens’ rights might have been managed differently. They explore personal experiences of Brexit from the relationships that these Britons have with friends and family in the UK to how British citizens in France found themselves making sense of Brexit for them, their experiences of having nowhere to turn and the uneven outcomes that Brexit has had for their lives.    To read Michaela’s report Brexit and the British in France visit https://brexitbritsabroad.org/reports.

This week we’re bringing you a double-bill to mark the release of our latest reports. In this first episode, Michaela is joined by Karen to talk about her report drawing across three years of researching Brexit in the lives of Britons living in Spain. They discuss the importance of locating Brexit within the context and conditions of British migration and settlement in Spain over time; the ongoing confusion about what Brexit means for their lives and futures; and the ever-present spectre of stereotypes about these British citizens and their lives in Spain. As their experience of Brexit makes clear, from the outset the onus was placed on individuals to make sense of what is happening to their rights, as they internalised an understanding that they were nobody’s responsibility but their own.    To read Karen’s report Brexit and the British in Spain visit https://brexitbritsabroad.org/reports.

Recorded in Berlin in November 2019, in this episode Michaela is joined by Christy Kulz, Technical University Berlin and Christine Barwick, Centre Marc Bloch, to talk about the migration of British citizens to Berlin. We disturb some of the reductive narratives about the British in Berlin, in particular, understandings that see them solely as the young, creative industry workers. We question instead what the migration of these younger Britons reveals about contemporary urban and economic transformations in Europe. Further, we reposition these migrations in a longer history and the context of Berlin as a city past and present.

Sticking with the theme of Brexit and Ireland, Michaela is joined by Vikki Barry Brown, a PhD candidate from Queen Mary, University of London, to talk about Irish passports, English and Irish identities, and Brexit. They discuss the rise in applications of Irish passport following Brexit and how the significance placed on this by those claiming these passports (through ancestry) extends beyond pragmatic and legal issues, into questions of identity, the experience a site for uncovering previously hidden family histories. Turning to Vikki’s PhD research about the English in Ireland, they talk about this hidden population, from the context to the questions of identity, home and belonging at the heart of the project.    You can find out more about Vikki's research here: https://englishinireland.vbarrybrown.com and read her Irish Times article about the rise in applications for Irish passports in the Irish Times: https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/abroad/brexit-irish-getting-an-irish-passport-was-partly-about-rebelling-1.3954125