Tuesday 15 October 2019

Kamping in England

As the United Kingdom lurches further towards a strict form of anarchy, with the job of Home Secretary in the hands of a person whose parents were deported from Uganda a generation ago by that country's equivalent of Boris Johnson, one Idi Amin (the self-styled Last King of Scotland), Britons living in Europe are beginning to worry for their future.
The European Union, having never shown much interest in those of their citizens who live quietly in other European states, will now be turning its gaze on those who have abruptly lost their European status through their own apparent collective stupidity (despite the fact that many of us were not allowed by British legislation to vote in the referendum of 2016, while many other 'ex-pats' firmly voted 'remain').
Our leading spokesperson Leapy Lee no doubt doing his best to calm the waters.
Thus, as the British toy with deportation for some, or perhaps many of their European residents, can the EU-27 be far behind?
Apparently not, according to the recent article in The Guardian: 'Britons in Europe face citizens' rights 'lottery' in event of no deal' says the paper, which suggests that we expatriates may have even greater problems to come than the Europeans in the UK (there are 3.6 million of them, and part of the Brexit plan is to whittle this number down).
Opinion from The Independent is even more worrisome. It says 'Brexit: Boris Johnson’s hard line on immigrants risks ‘retaliatory deportations’ for UK citizens in Europe'. It begins 'Botched announcements by Boris Johnson’s government are putting over a million British citizens living on the continent at the risk of “retaliatory deportations” and other consequences after Brexit, the Prime Minister has been warned...'.
In the event of mass deportation, will the British send one of its remaining gun-boats down to Garrucha to pick us all up?
I can imagine the captain shouting through his megaphone in a rough Bradford accent, 'Form an orderly queue with passports at the ready. There will be just one small bag allowed, imagine you're on a Ryanair flight ladies and gentlemen. I'm sorry, but there's no room for pets on my ship and strictly no foreign-born companions'.
As we arrive back in the UK, unwanted and unloved, a lucky few of us will have a place to go to. Some others will rekindle an undying love of a close relative with a spare guest-room, but most of us will be homeless. Property prices being as they are, and with our houses in Europe either embargoed or unsellable, we will be obliged to throw ourselves on the Mercy of the State.
How will the Home Secretary receive us? Perhaps we will be placed in the confiscated homes of those Europeans who will have fallen foul of her, but more likely, she will order the construction of a
huge camp - maybe located on Salisbury Plain - for all the penniless ex-pats jettisoned from Europe following the forthcoming Westminster putsch on Europeans. The Poles may be invited to build it before they are sent home, apparently they are quite good with their hands, and no doubt Commonwealth citizens will eventually be chosen to run the place.
We ex-pats won't be very amenable to this treatment, but there will be no where else for us to go.
Then, I think, as the Brit authorities notice that many of us are conditioned to drive on the right, they may decide, for our own safety, to keep us within the camp.
Permanently.

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