The certainty of Brexit brings a new wave of uncertainty for British nationals living in the Netherlands. The promise to ‘get Brexit done’, the linchpin of the Conservative party’s election victory in December, means the UK is formally leaving the European Union at midnight CET on January 31.

But there are few clues about how Britain and the EU will do business when the negotiations on the future relationship conclude at the end of 2020. As Matty Mitford, 43, originally from London but now living and studying in The Hague, puts it: ‘We know things are going to change rather than stay the same, but we don’t know how those things are going to change.’

Over the past year DutchNews.nl has spoken to a number of British nationals in the Netherlands who will lose their status as EU citizens, a development few of them anticipated when they arrived.

With the UK’s departure now imminent, we asked them how their views have changed in the intervening months. There are few positive notes. Most have taken steps to either safeguard their residency or apply for Dutch citizenship.

For the younger expats, the prospect of not being able to build a career in Europe looms large. Rory Bowe, who moved to Amsterdam in 2017 to study international development, says: ‘The idea still worries me that if I ever moved back to the UK it would be significantly harder to move back again to an EU country.

‘While it is great EU countries are seeking to protect the life of British citizens that live in their countries at this point in time, this is the iteration of their life as it currently stands. What if they move away and want to come back, or move to another job within the country?’

Passport

Bowe, 25, is resisting taking Dutch nationality, which he sees as too drastic a step ‘for the age and stage in my life that I am at right now’, but for others the benefits of European citizenship trump a British passport.

Elsa Court, 23, is taking Dutch classes and aims to sit the Staatsexamen NT2 in the spring. But she says: ‘I think I won’t really feel fully “secure” until I get my EU citizenship back, which I plan to do by applying for Dutch citizenship in September.’

After more than four years in the Netherlands, Court sees her future as being on the eastern shore of the North Sea. ‘I know I’m a foreigner, but I also feel very integrated: I’ve studied at two Dutch universities, I love hagelslag, I cycle everywhere (on a bike with no handbrakes or gears), my boyfriend is Dutch and we are starting to talk in Dutch more naturally to each other.

‘It also comes down to the fact that if I were to leave the Netherlands, without citizenship I wouldn’t automatically have the right to come back to a country I now consider a home.’

‘Our’ jobs

The idea of returning to the UK is equally unappealing to 51-year-old Chris Mellor, who has lived in The Hague since 1993. ‘I never say never, but what is there?’ he says. ‘A country that really doesn’t care about its citizens, a lot of upset and angry people who moan about foreigners taking “our” jobs and “our” houses, and a media and press that run their own narratives.’

Gillian Benjamin, who retired to Limburg with her husband Ron a year ago, is more resolute still: ‘I have absolutely no intention of going back to the UK, not even for a visit. This is the place where I belong: it is home!’

The Benjamins have to wait another four years until they can apply for Dutch nationality, but in the meantime they are getting on with learning the language and preparing for their inburgering exams. Gillian says: ‘I’ve swapped all the documents I can and registered, but it’s very difficult to prepare anything more because the [UK] government are unpredictable. Who knows what they might decide to do next?’

Dual national Ben Holder renewed his British passport last year because his work in advertising regularly takes him back to the UK, but sees it purely as a badge of convenience. ‘Everything about Brexit makes my soul retch,’ he says. ‘If there was a European passport, I would be first in line. Europe is the most all-encompassing place on earth.’

Jay Bhatt, who holds a UK passport as a native of Hong Kong, plans to let it expire when he gets his Dutch one, rather than pay the £372 (€440) fee for renouncing his citizenship. ‘I think the value of the British passport is going to plummet off the back of this,’ he says. ‘I love the idea of being able to live in the Netherlands and retire to Italy if I want to.’

Leaving the UK

Several of the expats say they know people in the UK who plan to leave because of Brexit. Three of Matty Mitford’s British friends – a doctor, a lawyer and a civil servant – who have either emigrated already or have well-advanced plans to move abroad.

‘There’s a general feeling of, there’s not necessarily a strong or safe future, so if you’ve got the kind of job that allows you to go somewhere else, why wouldn’t you leave?’ she says.

Claudia Woolgar, who took Dutch citizenship in February last year, mentions a Romanian friend who left the UK left following the Brexit referendum ‘because of the rise in racism she encountered’.

Elsa Court says one of her Romanian friends has had a similar experience: ‘She’s highly educated and probably speaks English with a better British accent than I do. She’s told me she’s definitely noticed more racist comments and a general lack of empathy towards her situation. It’s made her consider opportunities elsewhere in Europe, including the Netherlands.’

The prevailing sentiment as the UK’s membership of the EU enters its final hours is one of sadness at missed opportunities, tinged with anger at the way the political debate has been conducted.

‘The big problem with the UK is that a lot of people have empire syndrome,’ says Jay Bhatt. ‘They think the UK should be an empire again. But it’s the 21st century. You’re an island nation of 65 million people with zero competitive advantage, because there’s nothing you make or do that the world isn’t getting from somewhere else already, particularly China.’

Common sense

Ben Holder says the feeling among his friends and family in the UK is that ‘common sense has gone out the window. They are deeply concerned about those who will lose jobs and those who won’t cope with spiralling costs. The old are concerned for the young who won’t have the education and travel opportunities that they had.’

Claudia Woolgar draws parallels between Brexit and the darker chapters of European history. ‘We are seeing a rise in nationalism, in division between religions, ethnicity, nationality and a non-egalitarian approach to human rights,’ she says.

‘Monday was the commemoration of the freeing of Auschwitz. We have enjoyed relative peace since then. That’s what working together as EU citizens has helped achieve. Brexit will not, of course, in itself cause war to break out in Europe. But it is a retrogressive step into a more divided past European landscape.’

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