#EURef#Brexit 1. Am English & partner is Polish. We used to shop in the local market. But one day a market guy called my girlfriend a "bloody foreigner". So we don't shop in the local market anymore...
#EURef#Brexit 2. Am English & partner is Polish. We used to watch #BBC News & Politics progs. But when BBC became a platform for UKIP & #Brexit we stopped watching...
#EURef#Brexit 3. Am English & partner is Polish. We used to look at the newspapers. But when the newspaper headlines began screaming hate about "foreigners" we stopped reading the newspapers...
#EURef#Brexit 4. Am English & partner is Polish. We used to enjoy shopping in the supermarket. But when the supermarkets started piling Express, Mail, Sun on every checkout--all of them vomiting up anti-foreigner bile--we stopped enjoying shopping...
#EURef#Brexit 5. Am English & partner is Polish. Partner always worked & paid taxes. Speaks perfect English. Was happy enough at work. But when co-workers told her to "go back to your own country" she stopped being happy at work...
#EURef#Brexit 6. Am English & partner is Polish. We used to enjoy meeting people, socialising. But now we keep ourselves to ourselves...
#EURef#Brexit 7. Am English & partner is Polish. When I visit my partner's home town in Poland I'm always welcomed. And I always visit the graveyard, which is full of war memorials for "Normandy" "Cassino" "Arnhem" "Tobruk" -- Polish lads who died fighting "British" battles...
#EURef#Brexit 8. Am English & partner is Polish. Partner had considered applying for British citizenship, but when first Poles were attacked in the street or had shit put thru their letterbox or their house set on fire, she went off the idea...
#EURef#Brexit 9. Am English & partner is Polish. We used to be happy enough. But now we are worried. Seems Brexit will take away our EU citizen rights, making it harder to stick together & live in peace. Still, some will say they "got their country back"...
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Random #Brexit thread by middle-aged, white, Northern, working-class guy...
1. Before #EURef I knew little about EU. Decades of negative UK media had made me a bit sceptical. But I was not really “political”.
2. Got a Polish partner. Been together 18 years. Long before #EURef she’d started getting snarky comments from folks about being “over here” & “going home” etc. This got steadily worse & was kinda shocking.
Tax-paying EU citizens in UK:
1 Denied vote over their own future in #EURef
2 Told "nothing would change" in case of #Brexit
3 Dubbed "bargaining chips" by UK Govt
4 Been left "in limbo" for 2 years
5 Forced to pay a fee just to be allowed to get on with their lives #shameful
And on top of that, EU citizens have been publicly abused in a sustained tabloid hate campaign; some have been victims of hate crimes; and, overall, their plight has been largley ignored by UK TV news, incl. @BBCNews & @Channel4News ...
... These "EU citizens" are our friends, neighbours, colleagues, partners, spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends & family members. And for the last 40+ years, British people have been EU citizens too ...