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 ...