When focusing on the political and economic aspects of Brexit, it is easy to forget the human drama it represents for many people. Here is an extract from an Irish UK immigrant’s story:
What’s it like observing an entire country having a nervous breakdown? Those of us living in the now utterly divided UK know the answer. It’s like being a lodger in a house with a couple who have decided to get divorced but can’t afford to separate. It’s lying awake at night listening to bickering in the next room. It’s sitting opposite both parties at the breakfast table, smiling sympathetically at the eye-rolls each are throwing behind the other’s back. And it’s all the while silently knowing that any expression of one’s own discomfort will be dismissed with the words “Well, if you hate it here so much, why don’t you just leave?”. Totes awks.
Now imagine that one of the reasons for the divorce is that the couple could not agree on whether to take in lodgers in the future. Naturally, in that situation your mere presence becomes an acute reminder of their failure to agree. It becomes impossible for them to see you beyond the uncomfortable feelings you bring. All you are is a lower lip, quivering as you warble, “Is this is about that time I got you out of bed at 2am to let me in? Because if it is that won’t happen again. I can change, I swear.”
This is what being a migrant in Brexit Britain is like. Surrounded by wounded divorcée landlords, hoping you don’t say the wrong thing to the wrong person. You find yourself appraising everyone you meet to discern which camp they fall into and thus the ground on which you can safely tread.
The Brexiteer is the party in the dispute who admits that the income from lodgers is required to cover the mortgage on the house but who wants to be able to apply more quality control to the kind of lodgers they allow in. They also have a strong suspicion that one of the lodgers has been helping themselves to their jar of Marmite and won’t be taken for a fool.
The Remainers are the ones drilling you at length about the profile of the UK in the outside world. To fully understand their position one must remember that the British are the people who invented manners and etiquette, and so in their eyes to treat a guest badly is unforgivable. One cannot underestimate how utterly wretched they feel at the poor impression this whole debacle must be giving those looking on. I’ve had a very positive experience of the country, but I still have to reach to find enough good things to say that will quell their fear that they are now regarded internationally as complete dumbasses.
