Next time I read ‘get rid of all EU foreigner scum’ on a Facebook page (not that I go on these very often but they do exist), I remember that my mother is still taking English lessons after my 30 years in the UK, just so she can speak to my husband whose French is sketchy at best. I remember that my father also speaks English as best he can. And my brother, and my sister, and my niece and nephew, and my friends. Sadly I also remember that I now look around before speaking French to my mother or to my French-speaking friends from France, Belgium or Switzerland in public just in case someone tells me to ‘f* off back to your own country’ or shouts ‘speak English, we’re in England, inn’it’. Next time someone tells me ‘Oh, I don’t mean you, you’ll be fine’, I remember that some people want to ‘get rid of all EU citizens and deport them to their own country’ (see recent – hopefully flawed – so-called ‘survey’ from a not-so-respected newspaper). I’m an EU citizen, I’m a UK taxpayer, I invested my love, my life, my time, my money in the UK. I’m a human being, not a bargaining chip. It’s been 14 months now and it feels like a lifetime of uncertainty and worry and rejection by a possibly small but vocal and hate-filled minority. Please, can we all wake up from this nightmare and behave like fellow human beings?
