Brexpat

Brexpat

Abraham Lincoln said “ You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time but you can't please all of the people all of the time” - true - but the British government, with considerable help from the opposition parties, have found a way to displease all of the people all at the same time! To explain all the twists and turns that have led to the current state of affairs concerning Britain and the European Union would take up more space than I allow for these columns. So I will restrict myself to my own situation, a British citizen living in the European Union. A situation which, like the whole Brexit story, is about as clear as a pint of Guiness!

Early in the negotiations is was agreed that the status of Brits living in the EU and EU citizens living in Britain would be protected however if there is no deal will this agreement still be valid? Nobody seems to know. As a result I have been studying my options which, depending on the outcome, could mean doing absolutely nothing or a change of nationality.

I find myself reluctant to take this last step but I'm not at all sure why. I mean, it's not as if signing a piece of paper would make me Dutch overnight. I wouldn't suddenly start liking salty liquorice or smartlap (Dutch tear-jerk) music. I wouldn't start eating chocolate sprinkles for breakfast, talk loudly in public places or paint my face orange on April 27^th! I would become a Dutch citizen, not Dutch. Nor would losing my British Passport remove my last remaining traces of Britishness: eating toast with Marmite, listening to BBC Radio, a reluctance to show feelings or 'make a fuss' and (so I'm told) my typical British humour. Anyway, one of the options open to me, curiously called 'The Option', would enable me to become a Dutch national and retain my British passport. Now I rather like the idea of having a dual nationality, mildly exotic and more interesting than having just one, more a reason for taking the 'option' than resisting it!

It's true that despite having family and long standing friends in both countries I don't feel any deep emotional attachment to either The Netherlands or The United Kingdom as nations. It is also true that while other people are desperately searching for their roots I am quite happy with a vague and unconfirmed family history. Every person, however integrated, who lives somewhere other than their country of origin feels a bit of an outsider and most, and this certainly applies to me, would feel at least as much an outsider if, or when, they went back. Anyway for an artist (for want of a better word) and writer being 'a bit of an outsider' is more or less of part of the job and it seriously doesn't bother me. So, if it doesn't bother me either way, why would I hesitate to take on Dutch, or any other, citizenship for practical reasons?

Could wanderlust be the problem.

The Netherlands despite it's faults must be one of the easiest countries to live in but somewhere at the back of my mind I have a small but deep seated desire to move on, to experience new and more challenging places. But no, a feeling of transience caused by a repressed wanderlust, that's not it either. In reality I'm not going to suddenly pack up and leave. Age and finances would make a permanent move highly unlikely if not impossible! I'm here to stay, my trips to other countries just get a bit longer!

So what's the problem then?

Well-  the situation I'm faced with has been caused by, among other things :

a failed political gamble,

misinformed and misguided patriots, chauvenists, xenophobes and people with genuine grievances but the wrong target,

an ineffective and complacent campaign to remain in the EU

and a parliament full of politicians who were too scared or unwilling to point out that the referendum was not binding and that, although a significant number of the population (about 35% of the total electorate) were, rightly or wrongly, far from happy with the EU, the result did not give the government a mandate to make huge and far reaching constitutional changes and it certainly didn't give parliament the right to get the country into such a mess!

No, it's not the choices that I may have to make that are bothering me, it's the fact that, through no fault of my own, I may be forced to make them.

Oh, and by the way, I wasn't even allowed to vote!