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by Silhouette 3216 days ago
I don't know your situation, but I can't help thinking that some of the attitude you describe is more perception than reality.

One of the things even our current government has managed to say reasonably clearly is that people from the EU who are living and working here legally today will be welcome to stay post-Brexit. They're quibbling over details, because that's what politicians and diplomats do, but I don't think anyone serious is suggesting that someone like your partner or her son should lose out here.

Similarly, there are some very nasty racist/xenophobic people in the UK, and sadly there always have been, and it looks like there are similar unpleasant undercurrents in various other places around the EU as well. However, exactly none of the Leave voters I know would be among those people. There seem to be plenty of reasons people voted Leave that have nothing to do with the immigration issue or somehow wanting to "throw out" citizens from other EU states. One group of people I talked to before the vote were even tending towards Leave for exactly the opposite reason: they had nothing against reasonable immigration, but didn't see why the EU should have an advantage over, say, someone similarly qualified or connected but from the US or Australia, and they wanted the whole immigration and visa system to be forced to update for the 21st century. (Possibly an optimistic view of the likely outcome, but a reasonable enough position in principle, IMHO.)

I am not ashamed to be British because of the Brexit vote, but I am sad about how it's been portrayed particularly in the media and by a rather unpleasant part of the Remain contingent online, because I think it makes some people feel far less welcome here than they still are by most Brits.