How are British nationals in the Netherlands coping with Brexit? In the run-up to Brexit and beyond, we are talking to Brits about how the issue is affecting them personally, what they are planning to do to regulate their stay, and how they view the UK.

Rory Bowe, 25, moved from Wellingborough (Northamptonshire) to Amsterdam in 2017. Rory is a research assistant at the University of Amsterdam and also project manages a citizen news reporting app that partners with organisations such as Oxfam and Friends of the Earth.

‘I came to the Netherlands in 2017 for a one-year Masters in International Development at the University of Amsterdam. I hadn’t really thought about the long term. The cost and standard of teaching compared to the UK was a bit of a no-brainer, and as an EU citizen I was able to capitalise on that. And when I graduated I went straight in to working for the university and a second job at a restaurant in the centre of Amsterdam.

‘So far Brexit hasn’t made much of a difference to me in terms of travelling or my family. It’s still easy to go back and forth, there’s no need for visas or anything like that. When I’ve applied for jobs I haven’t encountered any obvious obstacles or hesitation about hiring a British person.

Questions

‘It’s more about filling in the blanks due to a lack of certainty and thinking about potential decisions I may have to make now that will affect my stay here in the future. A lot of younger people back home have asked me: how is your status going to change; will you have to move back; are they going to kick you out? Just constant questions that neither I or anyone else can answer.

‘I feel more detached from the UK now because the outcome of the referendum wasn’t what I wanted. But the general election and how our country will be run for the next five years is playing on my mind more. Brexit feels like an inevitability now. I’ve come to terms with it, but I haven’t come to terms with everything else a Conservative government will give us.

‘After the election was called, the more I heard this narrative of: ‘I’m so sick and tired of Brexit, let’s just get it done,’ the more I thought: ‘OK, this is the mood of a lot of people in the country, maybe even a majority.’ I am hopeful for another referendum to be put back to the British people, but if the Brexit train continues to roll onwards, we’ve just got to go with it and make those decisions, and if that means not going back to live in the UK for the next five years then so be it.

Opportunities

‘Amsterdam is a big hub for international development organisations and there’s no shortage of opportunities here. Having English as my mother tongue is always going to be an advantage in any international-facing company or organisation. I don’t foresee it being too much of an issue, or at least I hope not. I don’t want to think it will be harder or that I’ll be discriminated against in some way.

‘At the end of the day, if I need to pay for a visa to go back to the UK or vice versa, or for my parents to come and visit me, I’m fortunate enough to be able to do that. It’s more that the idea of it in principle is abhorrent. Plenty of people have said: ‘I wish the UK could have stayed and we could have had a productive dialogue about what needed to be changed.’

‘If Brexit hadn’t happened that dialogue would have continued. It’s just a shame that the last three years have taken up so much of the EU’s time and energy and no self-reflection has happened. I think the EU project has consolidated itself further, and is not handling the rise of nationalist sentiment on the right.

Dutch letters

‘The letters the Dutch government sent out in March last year came at a really important time. Even though it’s just a piece of paper, it’s good to have that as we go into the next year of uncertainty. I don’t know what more they could have done with the hand they were dealt.

‘In the restaurant where I work in Amsterdam I’ve had a lot of conversations with British people living in other parts of Europe. I remember talking to two guys who lived in the south of France and I explained about the letters from the government, and they told me they hadn’t had any correspondence with the French government. It varies so much from country to country. We’re lucky in this country to have a government that’s on our side.

‘The best-case scenario for me after January 31 would be to retain my freedom of movement and ability to travel, live and work in Europe. My concern is that while those things are fine for me in my current situation, if I move somewhere else or back to the UK and then come back to the EU, it won’t be as easy.

Flexibility

‘This idea of being in stasis is really unnerving and frustrating. The EU was built on having the flexibility and ability to move around and start somewhere else. Maybe our leaders can still work out citizens’ rights on a country-to-country basis, but in general it’s been turned on its head.

‘I’ve read a lot of the stories on DutchNews.nl about people saying they want to scrap their British citizenship and take a Dutch passport. It’s overwhelming that people have got to the point where they want to take such a drastic step. But they tend to be people who’ve been in the country for 20 or 30 years and have children here or a Dutch partner or whatever.

‘For me it still feels like something strange and scary that I wouldn’t be comfortable doing. I don’t know what the benefits would be for someone like me in my mid-twenties. I can still vote in the UK for another 12 years. So it’s not really an option for me right now and I don’t know at what point it would feel like a legitimate choice.’