"We'll miss us when we're gone": quiet Brexit bench if anyone wants to stop by

[Justiceisblind]

"I'll miss us when we're gone"

I'm very sad about it. It's impacted on my family already. My DS lives and works in an EU city, and it's got more complicated (exacerbated by covid as his hospitality job ended as the place closed) He's made a life there and is desperately hoping he'll be able to stay, but is unlikely to be easily able to walk into a job, particularly if the county does a' tit for tat' points system. He has residency, but that won't automatically renew.
And we're not rich. He saved up enough for a month of travel, but got a job in this city to help fund his trip. Met a girl...and stayed.
That's before the slow decline that we're likely to see here.
Very sad today.

I'm so sad. I feel completely European: I lived in France for years and had one of my children there. French friends see this as inexplicable.

Although I'm lucky enough to have Irish citizenship, my children don't and I'm heartbroken that my teens don't have the opportunities I did at their age, that it was taken from them before they were old enough to have a say in anything.

I hope it all works out for your son, Sunsetdawn. This all feels so awful, and so unnecessary and yet here it is, happening. I never voted for any of it and today just feels shit.

Didn't want any of this but I'll just have to make the best of it now. Our processes and policies will be changing completely so that's all we'll be doing for the foreseeable.

Sad times indeed. I am European and always will be. I'm British and have only ever lived in the UK and I am European and still live in Europe even if I have been wrenched out of the EU against my will.

My children and their generation will take us back in.

I am sad too, that the people of the UK made this historic mistake.

Worst of all, we have ended up with a government that is so bad that we have ended up capitulating to the EU demands to get a trade deal. So not even damage limitation.

I’ll sit quietly for a bit ... I’m sad that we voted to leave, sad that we left (and sad that Labour supported it). I’m trying to be optimistic but it’s hard when four and a half years on, I’m yet to hear of even one, small, genuine benefit of Brexit.

I don't even know who "we" are any more. I don't think there is a "we". And I feel more European than ever.

I’ll come. I’m British with no connection that would allow me EU citizenship. Very sad today.

I'll sit. I lived in Europe on two separate occasions, totaling 5 years. Would love to become an EU citizen again but it's almost impossible. Luckily DC can get EU nationality passports via DH. I'm the non EU loser of the family.
In my job I've observed business moving out of the UK to the EU over the last 4 years. I've also recently been dealing with the delightful shit show that is 'customs declarations to move goods from NI to GB' and vice versa. Government messages to be prepared are a joke. THEY are completely underprepared.
It's all been so pointlessly destructive. I'm sad

@DappledThings

Sad times indeed. I am European and always will be. I'm British and have only ever lived in the UK and I am European and still live in Europe even if I have been wrenched out of the EU against my will.

My children and their generation will take us back in.

I hope you're right @DappledThings. My mum is also optimistic that we'll be back in the EU one day - not in her lifetime, she thinks (she's in her mid-70s) but hopefully in mine/my children's.

I love that photo you posted - bless Led By Donkeys for giving a voice to us all throughout this horror - although it makes me cry too.

Can I have a bit of bench? I feel very sad about it all, plans for the future have been pulled apart.

I feel really sad. I have always felt European as well as British. I spent a year in France many years ago as a student. We have benefited so much from being in the EU especially financially. We really were an economic basket case before we joined. I just feel the UK is an ugly place at the moment, so many splits whether it be Brexit, Age, Covid, Race you name it there is a division. I just want a better world for the young and I am not sure Brexit will give them that. I am just hoping for the best.

I'll sit for a moment. I spent a happy year living in Germany as a student. Husband has relatives living in France and Germany. I feel European as well as British, and just don't identify with the 'them and us' rhetoric of some Brits. We're all the same really, whatever country we live in. Ah well. I'm not crying over it all but I do feel sad.

I'm desperately sad, and still angry too, though I am trying to let go of that now as it serves no purpose. I believe that we have made a huge mistake, and I'm sure that our children will seek to reverse it one day. For the time being, we just have to try and make the best of it.

I will always be a European, even if my EU citizenship has been taken from me against my will. I hope that we can remain on good terms with our neighbours despite all that has happened.

I'm not British but European, but I lived in the UK for many years and always felt completely at home there. Like I did in any EU country I lived in.

It makes me sad that somehow that's changing tomorrow. I learnt at school that the UK was a part of us, a part of the EU. The EU was this big country full of little countries where people were a little different but still connected and part of the same thing. We learn that we could travel and study and experience any of those cultures if we wanted to. It's sad that children won't see the UK painted blue in their textbooks anymore (ironic about the blue passports hey...).

I'm sad my best friends and many of my relatives will be suffering the consequences of something they didn't vote for. They, too, feel British and European.

I'm sad my brother will have to turn down his offer to study at a UK university, because my parents can't afford £24k a year on fees. I'm sad I won't have the option to even consider a move back to England after my current job finishes, because I will probably never qualify for a work visa due to the nature of my profession. 🥂🇪🇺

I'll join. I'm British and European, and have never seen or felt a conflict between those two identities. I'm sad too about the loss of rights and opportunities, not just for me but especially for my kids. I'm worried about the future, our inevitable economic and political decline, with all the social implications that will bring. I'm also deeply furious at the lying bastards that led us into this.

I hope you're right @DappledThings. My mum is also optimistic that we'll be back in the EU one day - not in her lifetime, she thinks (she's in her mid-70s) but hopefully in mine/my children's.
My mum is the same. She hates that so many people assume she supported this because of her age.

I love that photo you posted - bless Led By Donkeys for giving a voice to us all throughout this horror - although it makes me cry too.
Yes, me too. Love LbD and that video was lovely and heartbreaking at the same time

I mainly feel sad for my mum who won't be able to come to live with either of her daughters when she can no longer live independently.

And for people whose livelihoods and family rights are affected.

For me personally I feel - surprisingly - not much at all. My kids have their EU passports, and I am protected by the withdrawal agreement until I am naturalised. (I know I am very privileged, but the flip side is that as of last January I am completely disenfranchised to an extent that no British adult has been since before the suffragettes).

I feel sad and a bit hopeless, so budge up.

I don't feel I know my 'fellow Brits' any more. And this has, to an extent, made me a less-nice person, to the extent that if someone I know voted Leave, at work, asks me for a shift swap, I go, No, sorry, I can't. I just don't want to engage with them.

I have also be forced, by the evidence, to change my opinion of Gove as Education secretary. My eldest was caught up in the first tranche of 'no coursework mark' GCSEs, untested, unpiloted. My second in the untested, unpiloted 1-9 GCSEs (Maths and Eng).

However, though Gove methodology was as farcical as you'd expect from a Tory, he did identify the shite levels of state education in much of Britain, and did something, albeit not necessarily the right thing about it.

You only need to spend 5 soul destroying minutes on a Brexit FB page to realise what Remain were up against. But I honestly, wrongly thought is was a self-evident truth that being in the EU, though not perfect, was obviously to our advantage; I had reckoned without the sheer (tries to select right word) gullibility and manipulability of so many people who just didn't have the critical thinking skill to realise their predicament was the result of years of Right wing neglect, not the EU. Close to home, looking at you, Cornwall.

The nail in the coffin for me was how many people googled 'What is the EU?' -on June 24th. I mean, how thick do you need to be?

Anyway, I guess it has 'allowed' me to act far more selfishly, looking after my own, safe in the knowledge 52% of voters did the same. This is new for me.

Thankfully we are all dual citizens, but of Australia, not the EU, but me and the DSs really aren't Australian, we're British and European.

Sorry this is all a bit 'nasty', I will 'move on' (it does feel oddly like 'the stages of grief', if I'm honest!) but our retirement plans (villa in Spain)- gone; or long term motor-homing through Europe- pretty much gone; DS's desire to do Erasmus at a Design Uni in Copenhagen - gone; all my lovely, capable EU NHS colleagues- gone; (replaced by many who admit they bought qualifications...); but probably the biggie, DH's job. He's 60. His company won't be going through the hassle of work permits for him as they relocate their HQ to France.

It's all feeling a bit hopeless at the moment.

I am really sad, and angry.

I am Scottish and didn’t vote for this - our country unanimously voted to stay. The UK as a whole was lied too.

I want unrestricted travel and career options, and now neither is as simple.

I am sad too, half English, half Italian, European always and the EU was the bridge between my two countries 💕.

It is not just the lack of opportunity that saddens me but also now the dominant cultural, mainly English narrative. Xenophobia and the inward looking construction of a national identity that is still rooted in WW2.

Here are 2 memes from my Facebook this morning.
I'm so upset about our loss of rights to live & travel freely in any EU country.
No one around me in RL seems to grasp the enormity of the situation.
I'm very concerned about worker's rights particularly those with disabilities not being protected in law.

Is there a seat for me? Ancestors since the beginning of the 20th century and their descendants born in six of the EU countries, wonder how those no longer with us would make of it.

@CormoranStrike

I am really sad, and angry.

I am Scottish and didn’t vote for this - our country unanimously voted to stay. The UK as a whole was lied too.

I want unrestricted travel and career options, and now neither is as simple.

Totally agree Comoron, Joining in too as I consider myself very lucky to have children who did Erasmus programme, and know of many others who were not from wealthy families and this year in Spain France italy was the making of them. It allowed them to stay and work in these countries. We felt part of Europe and I'm not saying the EU was in any way perfect but its a lot better than being out on our own. It is complete madness to think the USA will grant us any special relationship deals. I truly beleive this economic and legal decsion should not have been put to public vote as there was not enough information given at the time of the vote. I detest David Cameron who did it to appease some old anti EU tories. And dont get me started on the vile Nigel Farage and his man of the people act, despicible little man.