I've never thought of myself as being
married to an immigrant. I don't think I have ever even thought about
the word immigrant in his context but given the gutter press has been
trying to tie that label around his neck for the best part of the last
couple of years, I thought I would give my reaction to it.
Thomas is
a Dane. But even that is more complex than it seems on the surface as
Thomas's dad is a German, or was a German who is now a naturalised
Dane (who happens to live in Italy!), and his mum is an
Italian-dwelling Dane. He was born in Denmark as a German citizen and
became a Dane later in his childhood though he has been a native Dane
all his life, until fourteen years ago when he decided to become a
Scottish Dane or a Danish Scot. I don't think of him as an immigrant
to the UK. Nor do I think of him as a Danish ex-pat. I think of him
as a fellow European. He is simply a mix of European nationalities,
just as my kids and our kids are.
In truth, I have in fact been married
to an immigrant for the best part of the last 25 years, because my
ex-husband was also a foreign EU citizen. So some of my kids are 25%
French/25%German and 50% Scottish, their siblings are 25%
Danish/25%German and 50% Scottish. Every day we sit down to eat as a
family and a mix of languages goes round the dining table. When
family visits more languages are added and that is the reality of our
life. We shuffle backwards and forwards and round and round between
European destinations that are simply an extension of family and an
extension of home. Our family speaks in a mix of languages, uses a
mix of currencies and lives in a variety of countries but we are one
– a family. I still have nieces in France, I have in-laws in Italy,
I have nieces and nephews in Denmark...etc etc
My earliest memories are of a
fascination with the different and the exotic. I would listen to
languages I didn't know or understand, I would look at the people
arriving from far-off continents in wonder and imagine their life
stories, desperate to befriend them. I started school at a time before there were many immigrants
in the suburbs of Glasgow. When the first Pakistani child joined my
class around the age of eight, I was drawn to him. I wanted to know
all about his life, where he was from, what he ate – he represented
a world waiting to be discovered and I was avid to learn.
We never went abroad when I was a
child so I was thirteen before I left these shores. I can still
remember thirteen year old me mounting the steps of the hovercraft on
Ramsgate beach in the summer of 1981. I felt like an astronaut on a trip
to the moon. As everyone else discussed their mundane holiday plans
around me and shouted at their squabbling kids, I sat with tears in
my eyes as I achieved the first step in my life's ambition. I was
going to go to mainland Europe. We stopped at a very basic café in
France and ordered plain lettuce with vinaigrette (by accident!) and
as my parents and brother moaned about it, I sat analysing the
presentation, the taste, the newness, the wonder of lettuce in
vinaigrette! I'm not sure any of them ever fully understood my
obsession with Europe and the world, maybe I was just always the
oddball of the family, but I was a happy oddball.
As a student I moved to Italy, then
France, then Germany. I was never going to be confined to Scotland. I
always assumed even at a young age that I would probably retire to
France.
Nor was I ever going to marry a Scottish
boy and stay here. I was always going to fill my house with the
exotic, the new, the colourful. Not to disappoint, I even did it
twice! Even I didn't see that coming! I once overheard Marcel's mates discussing me. They were
mid-teens and he was explaining my first husband had been French and
my second Danish – 'Did your mum just, like, shag her way round
Europe, then?' they laughed - you've got to love the bluntness of teenagers. No, I
didn't but I had a love affair with Europe and I am still having it
today.
And for that reason, tomorrow fills me
with a depth of dread and despair that I cannot even put into words.
All the hatred and lies printed on a daily basis about these
immigrants, in an attempt to stoke hatred, to split 'them' and 'us'
fills me with anger and at the same time crushes me to the point I
can't open a newspaper any more. I know the EU needs to evolve and
could do with a bit of tweaking from the inside but leave it? I never
imagined in my wildest dreams, until about three or four years ago
that that possibility would be raised in my lifetime, or in my kids'. To me there is no them or us, there is just all of us.
To me voting to leave would be denying
my kids' right to exist – every one of them exists because people
like Thomas and people like André were free to come here and work.
Because I was free to go there and work.
Tomorrow they cannot vote to
legitimize the lives they already lead. Tomorrow it doesn't matter
that Thomas and I have spent seven years bringing money into the
country through the international company we set up. It doesn't matter that his children are UK citizens, he can't vote for their future. And what information does he have about his or our life thereafter? None. Unless you are related to an EU citizen, it may have escaped your notice but there is no information about what happens after a brexit vote. There is nothing official, just silence. There are a lot of 'oh of course
they can't throw you out', 'oh of course you'll still be allowed your
healthcare, schooling, bank account, child benefit...' but there is
no information at all and I suspect that is because good old Boris's
actual plan is let's wait and see. Let's wait and see if the other EU
countries start repatriating the UK immigrants, let's wait and see if
they start making the UK immigrants take out hefty insurance policies
for healthcare, let's see if they bar them from benefits, let's see if France decides to play tough to keep their internal politics and the possibility of Marine le Pen at bay by making an example of the UK and then
let's decide. Do you fancy living in that limbo? Do you like the idea
of settling down somewhere and starting a family and then having
someone change the rules of the game 14 years down the line? Can you
imagine that?
So I don't need to say what I'm voting
tomorrow but I can say that the rug has been pulled from under my
feet, the wind taken from my sails and I will never fully recover
from this blow, whatever the outcome I waken up to on Friday. I will
never feel fully safe again.
