My Boyfriend’s A Scot & I’m A Spaniard: I Fear The Impact Brexit Could Have On Our Futurefeatured
Today I’m featuring a guest post from my good friend, Mireia Nicolàs. Mireia and I have been friends since we met at Salford University in 2008. Originally from Valencia, Mireia came to the UK to study, all thanks to the Erasmus Programme, an EU funded student exchange initiative founded in 1987.
Following the results of the EU referendum last week, Mireia is concerned that Britain’s exit from the EU could have a negative impact on her relationship with her Glaswegian boyfriend, Ewan. Here’s her story:
I could feel Ewan tossing and turning. We were visiting my parents in my hometown of Valencia and it was the night of the referendum. I was sure the Remain option would win. This was like the Scottish referendum all over again, which we had lived through two years prior. People vote to uphold the status quo, and the bookies said so! At 6 AM, I could feel him properly awake checking his phone, so I checked mine. And then, I saw someone firmly in the Remain camp post “Oh, Britain :’(“. My heart sank to my stomach. I kept scrolling. And then I saw it “Britain votes to leave the EU”. I burst out in tears.
I have lived most of my adult life between Spain and the UK. My boyfriend Ewan is from Glasgow. Last year, I took the decision to move back to Spain while Ewan finished his Master’s, so I could have a stable job and a flat for him to come to once he took the plunge. If he couldn’t find a job, we would move back to the UK. It was a Good Plan. We’re children of the EU freedom of movement and, before we met, Ewan lived in Madrid and I lived in Liverpool, thanks to different EU schemes. Thanks to the EU, his degree is as valid in Spain as mine is in the UK. We want to get married and have babies one day but until then, we want to enjoy Barcelona together. We fear that Brexit has shattered our plans to smithereens.
I burst into tears when Brexit was announced because now we don’t know what’s going to happen to us. Will I be able to find a job in the UK? Will I have to apply for a resident visa? The current salary threshold for non-EU residents who marry British citizens and apply for a spouse visa is £35,000 a year. Of course, my own EU status will not change, but if Britain cuts ties with Europe, will rules such as this apply to me? This type of salary is unattainable seeing as how we’re recent graduates.
Am I going to have to marry Ewan at the consulate in Barcelona so that once the Leave process is consumated we can show we have been married for at least two years and maybe, just maybe, then I will be allowed to stay in the UK?
He has Irish ancestry, could we perhaps get him an Irish passport?
What is going to happen to my degree? My Master’s Degree? His Master’s Degree?
What agreement does Switzerland have? Is that what the UK is going for? Surely people know Switzerland still demands prospective residents go through a visa application process, right? Which is tied to a job offer?
Since we’re both recent graduates with under five years’ experience in our fields, what job prospects do we have in each other’s countries? What company is going to want to sponsor me, a translator? There are already so many of us in the UK.
Suddenly, what was meant to be a relaxing trip to my hometown was filled with anxiety, checking the news constantly, trying to gather information. Our life was slowly coming together and now we were thrown into a whirlpool. A shit whirlpool. A deep, dark hole of despair courtesy of Nigel Farage who, by the way, couldn’t even win his own fucking constituency, and David Cameron, who gambled the country’s fate in a schoolboy’s tiff with classmate Boris Johnson.
My best friend is British and lives in Valencia with her Spanish boyfriend. Last weekend we met up with them and shared our worries. We all know non-EU people who had a shit time trying to stay in the EU. It’s daunting to think our lives could now include just as much paperwork.
There is now an obstacle in our relationship that might be insurmountable – immigration laws. I never thought it might be illegal for me to work in the UK without the right kind of paperwork, because the EU has been a constant in my life forever.
If I weren’t with Ewan, I would ask of the EU what everyone else I know is asking: be hard on the UK. No concessions. They don’t want to be with us? Take them out of the common market and cut that freedom of movement. Forget it.
The UK has been a pest to the EU for as long as I can remember, blocking agreements and asking for special treatment.
As someone raised in a Mediterranean town, I am especially resentful of British people: stag dos and holiday apartments are like a scar on the 2000-year-old face of Valencia. The ever-growing expat community, by far the largest foreign group in the region, have their own TV channels, newspapers, political parties. They’re the reason why supermarket chain Iceland has several branches in Spain (all dotted across expat hotspots, because truly what they just wanted was Britain with a bit more sun, not a whole different country).
The expat community is well-known for refusing to integrate, with many of them wearing their inability to speak any Spanish as a badge of pride. They insist on driving their British cars on Spanish roads because of course, the steering wheel on the right makes for a superior automobile.
My experience with expats made it all the more frustrating when British people in Britain would complain about foreigners. You see, I’m the “good” kind of foreigner (and I was literally told so) – I’m from a Western European country, proficient in English, highly educated, and totally integrated. I’m not Czech or, God forbid, Polish or Romanian. It was as though English people felt confident letting out their petty, xenophobic comments in my presence. I was aware of this nasty streak, of the ignorance and the Euroscepticism that was sweeping the UK (I felt like I was the only one who saw all those “FUNDED BY THE EUROPEAN UNION” signs across Northern England). I never imagined it would overtake the more gentle side of the British I had seen – well-read, sensible, and aware of what the European Union does for everyone. Talking to people with anti-EU views felt like that Monthy Python’s Life of Brian gag where they ask “What has Rome done for us?” and they keep listing things, but in the end dismiss them, just because.
The worst thing has been seeing the British economy take such a huge drop. Is it even worth moving to the UK now? It seems almost as fucked as Spain!
The uncertainty of not knowing what’s going to happen is absolutely horrid – we were just starting out our lives and now we have a big sword hanging over our heads and our future. Not knowing if I will be able to legally live in the same country as my boyfriend, the person I want to spend the rest of my life with, is breaking my heart and making me lose sleep.
