{"id":827,"date":"2019-03-07T09:28:04","date_gmt":"2019-03-07T08:28:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/?p=827"},"modified":"2019-03-07T09:28:04","modified_gmt":"2019-03-07T08:28:04","slug":"an-englishman-a-scotsman-and-a-welsh-woman-walk-into-a-brexitthis-is-no-joke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/?p=827&lang=en","title":{"rendered":"An Englishman, a Scotsman and a Welsh woman walk into a Brexit\u2026this is no joke"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Colin Rae<\/em><\/p>\n

I never thought it would happen. But on 29 March, the unthinkable will happen: Britain will leave the EU. As you can tell, I\u2019m not a Brexiteer. I\u2019ve spent the past 16 years living and working in Germany and while I have no plans to return to the UK, I\u2019m profoundly saddened by the state my country has got itself into. This is one of those cases where I couldn\u2019t give a damn what the people think. On something as complex as the EU, with all the intricacy and nuances of funding and trade relationships, you cannot expect the electorate to make an informed choice. Even the best political analysts, economists and legislative experts cannot say for sure what will happen now. All I know for sure is that 29 March will be a sad day in European history.<\/p>\n

Brexit walks into a bar and the barman says, \u201cwhy the long farce?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unable to reverse the most idiotic political decision in living memory, my fellow expats and I set about doing the only thing we could do. Richard, one of our managing directors, is half English, half Austrian. His way of securing his EU rights post Brexit was to get an Austrian passport \u2013 fairly straightforward and not all that drastic. My colleague Jess, originally from Wales and who at the time Article 50 was triggered had British and Canadian citizenship, needed to go a step further and \u201cbecome\u201d German. This involved renouncing her Canadian citizenship, sitting German language and citizenship tests and providing the authorities with endless paperwork so her application could be processed. Earlier this year she did indeed \u201cbecome\u201d German.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t mention the war<\/strong><\/p>\n

For my part, I also decided to apply for German citizenship in addition to staying British. Luckily for me, I had double the required period of residency, a German language qualification from a German institution (even Master\u2019s degrees in German from non-German universities don\u2019t count) and a full-time job. I got married here, started a family, have always paid my taxes and have never broken any laws. If they don\u2019t let me in, they won\u2019t let anyone in.<\/p>\n

Although it was the logical choice, it did take me a while to get my head around the psychological implications of becoming a national of another country. What would it mean to suddenly be German? Am I then automatically less British? How will it feel to play a more active role in how my adoptive country is run than the country of my birth? I\u2019ve come to the conclusion that I\u2019m going to be proud to be German, that it will be the last part of my integration. It won\u2019t make me less British in any real way; I\u2019m gaining not losing. And given the shift happening in this country, I\u2019m happy that when I cast my ballot, I will be shaping my own future in a country that values my opinion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 29 March, the unthinkable will happen: Britain will leave the EU. Even the best political analysts, economists and legislative experts cannot say for sure what will happen now. All I know for sure is this will be a sad day in European history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[296,45,124,295,35],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=827"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":831,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827\/revisions\/831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kleinwolfpeters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}