There’s a line in Alan Bennett’s play The History Boys where Mrs Lintott, the teacher played in the original production by Frances de la Tour, finishes an irate monologue about the essence of history by concluding: “What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket.”

For the past two years that’s precisely what we at British in Europe have been doing on citizens’ rights. We set up the organisation to help protect all UK citizens who live and work in another European Union country. Nearly 80% of us are working age or younger – Brexit threatens our livelihoods and the lives we have built up with our families in other countries.

And yet, more than 60% of us had no vote in the referendum.

Hauling our citizens’ rights bucket around is unglamorous work that never gets the big headlines because it involves real people’s lives rather than seemingly intractable rows over borders and trade. The pro-Brexit press and politicians show no interest because we don’t fit their agenda, although they can’t say this overtly because we are claimed to be the reason why the rights of EU citizens in the UK are still not guaranteed. It’s telling that, along with our sister group the3million, our requests for meetings with Theresa May, the Brexit secretaries and the home secretary have gone unanswered – although Michel Barnier has met us twice.

Throughout we have tried to remain neutral, patient and keep a sense of perspective. But now, faced with the prospect of either being sold out in a bad deal or the prospect of no deal at all, we can’t stay on the fence any longer.

Let’s go back to the point of departure for all this. We were promised our lives would carry on exactly as normal after Brexit, first by Vote Leave then by both May and Michel Barnier. This is particularly important because, if you are going to exclude from voting the very people whose lives hang on the outcome of that vote, then you have an extra special duty of care to fight for them as hard as possible.

Even if there is a deal, we cannot be said to have been a priority in the negotiations, in particular because May has not fought for our continuing right to free movement, which many of us rely on to provide for our families. Her negotiating position from the beginning has prioritised reducing the rights of EU citizens in the UK over supporting ours. So our rights will only be protected in the country where we live now – and even then, not all of them. This puts our livelihoods at risk. If you are a small-business owner like Helen, a British caterer who lives in France but makes half her income elsewhere, you won’t be able to take bookings in other EU countries at short notice, or maybe at all, because you’ll almost certainly need paperwork and, as we all know, paperwork takes time and clients don’t like to wait.

In the no-deal scenario, Brits on the continent will be thrown into turmoil as they will lose their current legal status. We can only hope that an emergency deal will be made to maintain our status – or give us one that is not simply a default to being a third-country national, which is nothing like what we have now.

If your view is, we’ll all lose rights, stop complaining, consider this: our personal limbo is also a political litmus test for the kind of future deals that the UK is prepared to fight for on behalf of its citizens. And if this is it, then things don’t look good for Brits in the UK itself, especially those who hoped Brexit would mean more control and a better quality of life.

As children of the European project who have lived its benefits first-hand and know what future generations in the UK are set to lose – enough is enough. We have no choice but to accept that the only solution to protect our lives and livelihoods (and those of EU citizens in the UK), as well as those of all Brits in the UK, is to remain in the EU.

That’s why we support a people’s vote and demand that the government deliver on its 2015 and 2017 manifesto commitments to give us back our vote and a say. If you’re going to make people reapply to live the lives they have built up through their own hard graft (on significantly worse terms than they currently have) then you owe them a vote. It’s not about sympathy or special treatment, it’s about finally having control over our own lives.

• Jane Golding is chair of British in Europe, the largest coalition group of British citizens living and working in the EU