EU families & Eurochildren in Brexiting Britain

From mobile citizens to migrants: event at the British Library

In the aftermath of the United Kingdom’s referendum on their continued membership of the European Union and the ongoing negotiations into the issue of citizens’ rights, EU27 nationals living in the UK and UK citizens living in the EU27, stand to see their legal status shift from that of mobile citizens to migrants. This has…

Being patriotic, European and cosmopolitan

by Michal Siewniak* This week my eldest daughter, Maria, had a non – uniform day. All children had an opportunity to express themselves. They all did that in many different ways. Our Maria decided to wear Polish top and Croatian scarf. Her mum comes from the Croatia whereas her dad is Polish. She was really…

Poem on belonging: A Traveller’s Lodge

A Traveller’s Lodge By Natalie Dunn Seized by twofold darkness: Two stools, one fallen, an empty room. The place I live in with a lost girl from Christchurch and a bewildered beauty from Boston who is making some Chinese tea. The French lady forfeited her accent somewhere, she is not looking. The farmer from…

You can’t have an integrated society in a hostile environment: Diary of an EU citizen in the UK (34)

The UK Government’s strategy is not for an integrated society, focusing on what government and society could and should do, but for integrated ‘communities’, code word for everyone else. After a bit of fanfare, a couple of catchy soundbites and a few top-line proposals leaked a day or two before the release, the Department of…

Is David Attenborough the solution to mass migration? Diary of an EU citizen in the UK (32)

Facts seem to have become a disposable commodity these days. We are going through a phase of evidence-free policy making and post-truth politics, known in Trump’s America as fake-newsism. “I will call an expert!” has replaced the bogeyman as parents’ favourite to frighten children into good behaviour. Tory ministers and MPs dismiss any evidence (from…

Recasting ‘us’ and ‘them’? Short video about the project

Originally posted on Postcards from …:
Divorcing after over 40 years of marriage – even if a slightly difficult one, partly of interest, partly of necessity – is never easy. Freedom of movement has allowed millions of people to move from one country to another and with it have come friendships, relationships, new families being formed…

Hairy moments: Diary of an EU citizen in the UK (31)

Originally posted on Postcards from …:
It all finished with a laugh. “I already have a jacket and spectacles like yours, Nando. Need to work a bit more on the curly hair though”, H. said enabling everyone around the table to take a breath and move on from the conversation. But how did we get there?…

The Brexit reading list: Diary of an EU citizen in the UK (30)

The morning that the university vice-chancellors saw on their desks the letter of the Tory MP Chris Heaton-Harris they could breathe a sigh of relief: for once it was not a FOI by the Guardian or UCU asking about their salaries. The MP for Daventry, a staunch Brexiteer, was not after their money. He only…

EU families & Eurochildren in Brexiting Britain

“It took 2 hours and one third didn’t get through”: Piloting the settled status application with Roma migrants

Theresa May’s dog-whistle rhetoric on EU citizens jumping the queue – and its effect on my four-year-old

Mapping EU citizens in the UK: A changing profile? From 1980s to the EU referendum

Thousands of children of EU parents at risk of falling through the cracks of Brexit, University of Birmingham research reveals