I live in London half a year now and I’m setting up a company in one of the emerging technologies. I’m dashing, smiling and always eager for a chat. Forever curious, speaking with a natural accent and looking like a proper Londoner. Yes, I’m a bit embarrassed when pronouncing my name brings so much effort — but English language too has difficult words in the vocabulary. And a name, at the end of the day — is something that can be administratively changed in time.

My second November in the UK is coming and I hope that Britain is so much better than these few bad things that happened to me over last year. So much better than this overwhelming surge of racism fired by Daily Mail (whoever reads this? No one wants to admit, ever!). So much better than the killing of a Polish fella in Harlow, now investigated as a possible hate crime. Finally — so much better than intimidating political rhetorics that doesn’t hit the seasonal migrants coming over here to pick up British strawberries during summer. No. They will have their £200 a week and they will flow back to their countries.

It hits us — skilled people that chose Britain for their home. Academics. Innovators. Entrepreneurs. Scientists. IT specialists. Architects. UK is our home. We pay our taxes here. We celebrate British legal fairness and transparency (because “our” countries often lack it). We spread good words about Britain and we praise it all over the world. We are actually proud to be British, even if we aren’t first class citizens (or citizens in the name of law at all). Will we ever be…?

You, dear Brexiteers, say in your internet comments: EU citizens have countries where they can come back, so what’s the problem? I will tell you. Basically it’s not true. Imagine that some of us have nowhere to go, and not because we earn less money there (I had a decent salary). Yes, some of us escaped from austerity. Some of us — ran away because of creeping censorship, rising especially in Eastern Europe. We — EU citizens — escape bad governments and corruption. And if we choose Britain to settle, to become our home, it means we trust your system. We trust we are safe here with our lives and our future. And no, we aren’t cards. We aren’t bargaining chips. We are humans. Equal to you.

Appendix: We already had times in history, when the society was divided and the groups were stirred and provoked to fight with each other. As we know, it ended really bad. That’s the reason we invented open borders and decided to form the European Union. Yes, I see some points behind Brexit. Every political structure flourishes and then decays. Yes, EU needs to be slightly reformed. But no single political condition should lead to such vile, toxic events as those happening in Britain now. I believe my country is still better than this.