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Sad but true. I think the most fundamental change of Brexit is the overwhelming "you're not welcome" message. Visas, papers, bureaucrats, people can deal with.

Sad but true. I think the most fundamental change of Brexit is the overwhelming "you're not welcome" message. Visas, papers, bureaucrats, people can deal with. But the idea that you're at best tolerated so long as you pay your taxes is really off-putting (even for me, now UK citizen and long-time resident). Also, all these schemes forget that moving for a job is so much more than that - it is moving a life. Can you move your life with your partner and kids - are they welcome? Can your parents come and visit? Is it obvious you can access healthcare, schools, social safety net on fair terms? Will you have to justify your whole existence to a reluctant bureaucrat every 12 months? Pre-Brexit, there was always a bit of tension to foreigners in the UK, but then there always is, and London was by far better than most places. But the guarantees of EU membership were so strong that you didn't even think about any of these issues. My impression is that another upside Silicon Valley has over the UK is that the US is genuinely a country of immigrants. Whatever hoops you have to jump through to get in or stay, I don't get the impression people are looked down on because they are foreign, once actually on the ground. Which is not so much the case in Brexitania.

throw_m239339 5y ago
> I don't get the impression people are looked down on because they are foreign In USA? It just depends how rich you are. Does that make things better?
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  If I'm from the Republic of South Abroadia, and getting a taxi in Silicon Valley, will I hear a rant about immigrants? Will I get funny looks etc? Maybe yes, I'm only taking about my impressions, I never worked in the US. Certainly doesn't seem to project that image, to me.
- chii 5y ago
  well, at least you can change how rich you are. You cannot change what race you are.
bb123 5y ago
> My impression is that another upside Silicon Valley has over the UK is that the US is genuinely a country of immigrants. Have you ever tried applying for a US Visa? The process makes the complaints of the author in this article look like a joke.
- netcan 5y ago
  I think this is OP's point... Bureaucratic nastiness is only half the game.
objclxt 5y ago
> the US is genuinely a country of immigrants [...] I don't get the impression people are looked down on because they are foreign, once actually on the ground. Whilst that may be the personal impression of some, the harsh reality is that many immigrants in the US suffer severe discrimination. For instance, many parts of the country have significant pockets of anti-hispanic sentiment. This often spills over into outright violence - just look at the El Paso shooting in 2019[1]. [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_El_Paso_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_El_Paso_shooting
paganel 5y ago
> and London was by far better than most places Anecdotal, but London is the only European capital city where I got shouted at on he street, in the middle of day, for being a foreigner. It happened about 10 years ago and actually the shouts of the two English young-ladies were directed at my (now) ex-wife, but I was still surprised by it. If it matters it happened in a posh-ish area of the city, around Kensington, I believe. As such the anti-foreigner mania that took over a great part of the British (and especially English) electorate a few years after that didn't surprise me. Otherwise I found London a great place, the only real cosmopolitan city left on this continent together with Istanbul (I haven't visited Moscow yet, to be honest), otherwise everything else seems rather stale (Vienna) or too self-absorbed to care about anything else outside of it (definitely Paris, maybe also Rome).
- orwin 5y ago
  I think Brussels is a real cosmopolitan city, not the size of London, but still. Lively even in winter. And Berlin is as well, but not really the same kind of cosmopolitan (i'd assume most people here wouldn't really like this kind of cosmopolitan). Lille used to be too, though a bit stale, i don't know if it has changed.
JetSetWilly 5y ago
> My impression is that another upside Silicon Valley has over the UK is that the US is genuinely a country of immigrants. Whatever hoops you have to jump through to get in or stay, I don't get the impression people are looked down on because they are foreign, once actually on the ground. Which is not so much the case in Brexitania. The UK is easily among the most tolerant and least racist of European countries. In international studies, the UK scores very highly on all such measures, usually much better than continental European countries. See e.g. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/least-racist-countries https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/least-rac... I don't understand this compulsive need of pro-EU voters to construct massive straw men about brexit voters and Brexit Britain. It is possible and reasonable for a country to decide it doesn't want to be a part of the European "project" without being a racist xenophobic hellhole. On the original article, it is strange it never covers how easy it is for someone in India or the Uk or Africa to immigrate to Germany. The UK has mass immigration still from all over the world - when you have considerably more potential immigrants than you can reasonably accommodate is when countries start getting picky and having rules.
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  > I don't understand this compulsive need of pro-EU voters to construct massive straw men about brexit voters and Brexit Britain. It is possible and reasonable for a country to decide it doesn't want to be a part of the European "project" without being a racist xenophobic hellhole. No one is taking that right away. No one is saying UK is a xenophobic hellhole. But the "foreigners" en masse are saying they don't like it, and are more likely to give the UK a miss. Either you don't mind, or if you do, don't pin your hopes of a booming start-up industry on those very same foreigners.
  - JetSetWilly 5y ago
    I've not noticed any decline in UK immigration as yet. If there is a decline and it is a problem, then the UK has the ability to address it as needed. If there is not a decline then there's not a problem. Speaking for my own workplace the effect of brexit has been to replace European migrants with more Indian migrants, not to actually reduce migration. Unless you believe that continental Europeans have some unique ability to found startups, I'm not sure there's much to worry about.
CyberRabbi 5y ago
I don’t understand the entitlement people from other countries feel to live in my country. I don’t feel the same entitlement to live in their country. Also, just because they are rich or can start a tech company doesn’t make them any more entitled to live wherever they want any more than anyone else. Just a very bizarre stance IMO and it seems one-sided.
- gpderetta 5y ago
  People from other EU countries were entitled to live in your (UK) country. Suddenly taking that right away did upend people lives.
  - throwaway210222 5y ago
    True, but article 50 has always been part of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). So EU citizen moving to the UK must have known on the day they decided to migrate that their entitlement to live in the UK was always subject to this caveat. It may suck, but it was never an right that could never be revoked.
    - eCa 5y ago
      I think most EU citizens thought it was about as likely as California seceding the US.
    - ginko 5y ago
      Article 50 was only added in 2009.
  - mytailorisrich 5y ago
    The life of EU citizens in the UK was not upended. For people who already qualified for permanent residence (i.e. who had been working in the UK for 5 years) nothing changed. For people who were in the UK for less than 5 years the automatic right to stay disappeared by in reality I believe that they were given so-called "pre-settled status" until they reach the 5 year mark and can stay as long as they want, from what I understand. Personally I like have proof of things so I had applied for proof of permanent residence (under EU law) before the UK actually left the EU (there was a gap of several years to do so after the referendum), which was quite straightforward, so moving to the new "settled status" only took a few minutes online. Of course, EU citizens who have been in the UK for 6+ years and have permanent residence can also apply for citizenship and forget about all of this altogether.
cameronh90 5y ago
As an alternate data point, my partner is a non-EU immigrant living in the UK. The immigration process was relatively straightforward, visa renewal was easy and she's rarely felt any hostility, unwelcoming or anyone looking down on her for being foreign. We do live in London, however my family are from elsewhere so we've spent plenty of time in other parts. Surveys generally say the UK and US attitude to immigrants is pretty similar, for example [1]. I'm not a fan of Brexit and wish it hadn't happened, but on the other hand I feel like the idea that there's been a huge anti-immigration shift in the UK to be exaggerated. If anything, our attitudes towards immigration have continued their trend of softening since the vote. Most other countries around the world get to apply discretion over which immigrants can settle there - why is it wrong if the UK also gets to do that? The upset seems to be mostly from rich western EU citizens, bothered that they are no longer an exception and are now treated exactly as any other country. Many of our ethnically Indian citizens, for example, voted for Brexit. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/03/14/around-the-world-more-say-immigrants-are-a-strength-than-a-burden/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/03/14/around-the-wor...
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  I talk to my children in Polish. Almost never before Brexit would random people ask me where I'm from or what language I'm speaking. Now it's all the time, and often with a gentle roll of the eyes afterwards. We don't live in London btw. I'd never go as far as saying it's terrible, but it's markedly different than it was.
  - cameronh90 5y ago
    Obviously I won't dispute your experience, and I'm sad that you have to go through that. It's never something we've experienced in any part of the UK so far, and we often speak in non-English (well, me not very well - as a typical British person, English is my only fluent language). However, I should add that when I was growing up 20+ years ago (also not in London), this kind of thing was much more common. Indeed, it was quite a lot worse. A roll of the eyes was probably the best you could expect. Some of the more unsavoury characters would walk around at night looking for members of particular immigrant groups to beat up, and people would talk about this as if it was perfectly normal and fine. Thankfully, that is no longer remotely acceptable. The long term trend has been greatly softening attitudes towards immigration. Perhaps the divisive Brexit campaign has knocked it back a bit, but when I compare us now to even 10-15 years ago, it still feels like we're practically a different country to how we were when I grew up.
polotics 5y ago
Kudos for having managed this: you just added a word to my vocabulary! "Brexitania" sounds perfect, also more precise than the erstwhile "little England"!

throw_m239339 5y ago

> I don't get the impression people are looked down on because they are foreign In USA? It just depends how rich you are. Does that make things better?

rich_sasha 5y ago
If I'm from the Republic of South Abroadia, and getting a taxi in Silicon Valley, will I hear a rant about immigrants? Will I get funny looks etc? Maybe yes, I'm only taking about my impressions, I never worked in the US. Certainly doesn't seem to project that image, to me.
chii 5y ago
well, at least you can change how rich you are. You cannot change what race you are.

bb123 5y ago

> My impression is that another upside Silicon Valley has over the UK is that the US is genuinely a country of immigrants. Have you ever tried applying for a US Visa? The process makes the complaints of the author in this article look like a joke.

netcan 5y ago
I think this is OP's point... Bureaucratic nastiness is only half the game.

objclxt 5y ago

> the US is genuinely a country of immigrants [...] I don't get the impression people are looked down on because they are foreign, once actually on the ground. Whilst that may be the personal impression of some, the harsh reality is that many immigrants in the US suffer severe discrimination. For instance, many parts of the country have significant pockets of anti-hispanic sentiment. This often spills over into outright violence - just look at the El Paso shooting in 2019[1]. [1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_El_Paso_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_El_Paso_shooting

paganel 5y ago

> and London was by far better than most places Anecdotal, but London is the only European capital city where I got shouted at on he street, in the middle of day, for being a foreigner. It happened about 10 years ago and actually the shouts of the two English young-ladies were directed at my (now) ex-wife, but I was still surprised by it. If it matters it happened in a posh-ish area of the city, around Kensington, I believe. As such the anti-foreigner mania that took over a great part of the British (and especially English) electorate a few years after that didn't surprise me. Otherwise I found London a great place, the only real cosmopolitan city left on this continent together with Istanbul (I haven't visited Moscow yet, to be honest), otherwise everything else seems rather stale (Vienna) or too self-absorbed to care about anything else outside of it (definitely Paris, maybe also Rome).

orwin 5y ago
I think Brussels is a real cosmopolitan city, not the size of London, but still. Lively even in winter. And Berlin is as well, but not really the same kind of cosmopolitan (i'd assume most people here wouldn't really like this kind of cosmopolitan). Lille used to be too, though a bit stale, i don't know if it has changed.

JetSetWilly 5y ago

> My impression is that another upside Silicon Valley has over the UK is that the US is genuinely a country of immigrants. Whatever hoops you have to jump through to get in or stay, I don't get the impression people are looked down on because they are foreign, once actually on the ground. Which is not so much the case in Brexitania. The UK is easily among the most tolerant and least racist of European countries. In international studies, the UK scores very highly on all such measures, usually much better than continental European countries. See e.g. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/least-racist-countries https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/least-rac... I don't understand this compulsive need of pro-EU voters to construct massive straw men about brexit voters and Brexit Britain. It is possible and reasonable for a country to decide it doesn't want to be a part of the European "project" without being a racist xenophobic hellhole. On the original article, it is strange it never covers how easy it is for someone in India or the Uk or Africa to immigrate to Germany. The UK has mass immigration still from all over the world - when you have considerably more potential immigrants than you can reasonably accommodate is when countries start getting picky and having rules.

rich_sasha 5y ago
> I don't understand this compulsive need of pro-EU voters to construct massive straw men about brexit voters and Brexit Britain. It is possible and reasonable for a country to decide it doesn't want to be a part of the European "project" without being a racist xenophobic hellhole. No one is taking that right away. No one is saying UK is a xenophobic hellhole. But the "foreigners" en masse are saying they don't like it, and are more likely to give the UK a miss. Either you don't mind, or if you do, don't pin your hopes of a booming start-up industry on those very same foreigners.
- JetSetWilly 5y ago
  I've not noticed any decline in UK immigration as yet. If there is a decline and it is a problem, then the UK has the ability to address it as needed. If there is not a decline then there's not a problem. Speaking for my own workplace the effect of brexit has been to replace European migrants with more Indian migrants, not to actually reduce migration. Unless you believe that continental Europeans have some unique ability to found startups, I'm not sure there's much to worry about.

CyberRabbi 5y ago

I don’t understand the entitlement people from other countries feel to live in my country. I don’t feel the same entitlement to live in their country. Also, just because they are rich or can start a tech company doesn’t make them any more entitled to live wherever they want any more than anyone else. Just a very bizarre stance IMO and it seems one-sided.

gpderetta 5y ago
People from other EU countries were entitled to live in your (UK) country. Suddenly taking that right away did upend people lives.
- throwaway210222 5y ago
  True, but article 50 has always been part of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). So EU citizen moving to the UK must have known on the day they decided to migrate that their entitlement to live in the UK was always subject to this caveat. It may suck, but it was never an right that could never be revoked.
  - eCa 5y ago
    I think most EU citizens thought it was about as likely as California seceding the US.
  - ginko 5y ago
    Article 50 was only added in 2009.
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  The life of EU citizens in the UK was not upended. For people who already qualified for permanent residence (i.e. who had been working in the UK for 5 years) nothing changed. For people who were in the UK for less than 5 years the automatic right to stay disappeared by in reality I believe that they were given so-called "pre-settled status" until they reach the 5 year mark and can stay as long as they want, from what I understand. Personally I like have proof of things so I had applied for proof of permanent residence (under EU law) before the UK actually left the EU (there was a gap of several years to do so after the referendum), which was quite straightforward, so moving to the new "settled status" only took a few minutes online. Of course, EU citizens who have been in the UK for 6+ years and have permanent residence can also apply for citizenship and forget about all of this altogether.

cameronh90 5y ago

As an alternate data point, my partner is a non-EU immigrant living in the UK. The immigration process was relatively straightforward, visa renewal was easy and she's rarely felt any hostility, unwelcoming or anyone looking down on her for being foreign. We do live in London, however my family are from elsewhere so we've spent plenty of time in other parts. Surveys generally say the UK and US attitude to immigrants is pretty similar, for example [1]. I'm not a fan of Brexit and wish it hadn't happened, but on the other hand I feel like the idea that there's been a huge anti-immigration shift in the UK to be exaggerated. If anything, our attitudes towards immigration have continued their trend of softening since the vote. Most other countries around the world get to apply discretion over which immigrants can settle there - why is it wrong if the UK also gets to do that? The upset seems to be mostly from rich western EU citizens, bothered that they are no longer an exception and are now treated exactly as any other country. Many of our ethnically Indian citizens, for example, voted for Brexit. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/03/14/around-the-world-more-say-immigrants-are-a-strength-than-a-burden/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/03/14/around-the-wor...

rich_sasha 5y ago
I talk to my children in Polish. Almost never before Brexit would random people ask me where I'm from or what language I'm speaking. Now it's all the time, and often with a gentle roll of the eyes afterwards. We don't live in London btw. I'd never go as far as saying it's terrible, but it's markedly different than it was.
- cameronh90 5y ago
  Obviously I won't dispute your experience, and I'm sad that you have to go through that. It's never something we've experienced in any part of the UK so far, and we often speak in non-English (well, me not very well - as a typical British person, English is my only fluent language). However, I should add that when I was growing up 20+ years ago (also not in London), this kind of thing was much more common. Indeed, it was quite a lot worse. A roll of the eyes was probably the best you could expect. Some of the more unsavoury characters would walk around at night looking for members of particular immigrant groups to beat up, and people would talk about this as if it was perfectly normal and fine. Thankfully, that is no longer remotely acceptable. The long term trend has been greatly softening attitudes towards immigration. Perhaps the divisive Brexit campaign has knocked it back a bit, but when I compare us now to even 10-15 years ago, it still feels like we're practically a different country to how we were when I grew up.

polotics 5y ago

Kudos for having managed this: you just added a word to my vocabulary! "Brexitania" sounds perfect, also more precise than the erstwhile "little England"!