EU families & Eurochildren in Brexiting Britain

Tell your Brexit story!

Would you like to participate in our research on the experiences of EU families and their children at the time of Brexit? Are you: 1. A parent, UK-based, born in an EU27 country or in a relationship with someone from an EU27 country (ie also UK-born and non-EU born parents)? Or 2. Resident in the…

Home Office in breach of law over permanent residence waiting times

The Home Office has broken the law by failing to publish the waiting times faced by EU citizens trying to get residence documents. The Information Commissioner ruled that Amber Rudd’s department is in breach of the Freedom of Information Act, having sat on the request for seven months and counting. Free Movement’s founder and editor,…

Citizens’ rights: update from Brexitland

The UK in a Changing Europe initiative has launched today a new Brexit factsheet series covering 10 essential issues affected by the Brexit negotiation. The Citizens’ Rights factsheet was written by Dr Nando Sigona together with Dr Michaela Benson, lead researcher of Brexit Brits Abroad project. Link to the factsheet: http://ukandeu.ac.uk/explainers/citizens-rights/

Who are the baddies? Diary of an EU citizen in the UK (29)

Originally posted on Postcards from …:
Not a good start to my day. I’m on the train reading one of the many stories of EU nationals packing and leaving Britain. This time is a French woman, a mother and grandmother of UK-born children, who lives in the Canterbury district and feels forced out of the country –…

Brexit fatigue: Diary of an EU citizen in the UK (28)

I have kept quiet lately on Brexit. Somehow I needed a break from it and the endless series of press conferences and leaks, grand posturing and ego-pleasing bravados, real or alleged negotiation failures, and the whole set of uncertainties that they project on us, EU nationals in Britain. By now it is clear that the…

EU citizenship: talking across borders

Nando Sigona is interviewed by Michaela Benson (Goldsmiths, University of London) for the Brexit Brits Abroad podcast series exploring commonalities and differences in the experiences of EU nationals in Britain and Brits in Europe. How do we rethink questions of identity and belonging in a dramatically changed and changing political landscape? In the conversation, Nando and…

Back to school? Barriers for UK Eurochildren

Helen McCarthy, a doctoral candidate at Middlesex University and a trustee at the Indoamerican Refugee and Migrant Organisation (IRMO), writes about her experiences supporting EU families in London. Maria* thought she was doing the right thing, bringing her daughter, Laura, 8 years old, with her when she moved to the UK from Spain. Maria, originally from…

Eurochildren and the art of belonging

Shannon Damery, writes about her experience of researching European identity and belonging of Eurochildren in Brussels, highlighting the complexity and shifting nature of these terms. She is a PhD student at Université de Liège. I’m terrible at ceramics. I have not talent for it whatsoever, but I spent several months in Brussels, Belgium making malformed…

“This is a disgusting political lie”: EU parents respond to the Children’s Commissioner’s letter to Michel Barnier

by Nando Sigona [originally published in LSE Europp Blog, 14 July 2017] Unhelpful, patronising, misinformed, politically motivated, disgusting: shocked parents of EU children living in the UK took to Twitter to react angrily to the intervention of the Children’s Commissioner for England in the Brexit debate. What did the Commissioner Anne Longfield say? And why…