I get peeved with the term ‘expat’ and how it is used to describe us. Good blog explains really well how if feel with the term.
Highlights
"Firstly, I know at least three Brits in Europe (including me) who hate gin.
Secondly, four out of five Brits who live in the EU 27 are working age. Many of us run businesses, hold down jobs, pay into the system and make a point of learning the local language. Many of us (again including me) work in several EU countries and really need freedom of movement to be able to do our jobs"
"When will the British media end its infuriating habit of referring to me and the other 1.3million UK citizens who live in the rest of the EU as ‘expats’?
It might be ok if they referred to our three million EU friends in the UK this way. But they don’t. They’re always ‘migrants’ or ‘nationals’."
Well put Martin! I know this subject comes around on a regular basis but it still amazes me how many UK immigrants in France get sooooo upset when they are referred to as just that - immigrants.
I’m often greeted with stunned silence and / or denial when I suggest that a UK national living in France is an immigrant. Thoroughly enjoy it though!!!
I’m luckier, the peeps who im friends with over here (might be the reason) never refer to themselves as ‘Expats’.
It’s only via this forum and the media that I get ‘branded’ by that horrible term.
You are so correct how many of our nationals don’t like the term ‘immigrant’ and now we are losing the potential use of ‘EU Citizen’ there is one less word to use…
I agree too. All throughout the talks so far on Brexit the EU migrants in the UK are referred to as EU nationals, so we should be called UK nationals. I don’t like the terms Expat or Migrant/Immigrant, it makes me shudder.
I was born in the UK and have lived abroad since the nineties, in France and now Ireland. I have always considered myself to be European, not British,English or expat anything.
Since Brexit I feel embarrassed and ashamed to be originally from Britain and the type of country it has become, where no one cares much about anything other than materialism and keeping England for the English.
Do you really think materialism and keeping England for the English only came about since Brexit? It has been like that for over 60 years. Remember Gordon Brown’s "British jobs for British workers"
The term expat or expatriate is one that white western migrants have used to differentiate themselves from other “lesser” immigrants from the rest of the world. An interesting article from a couple of years back:
You are probably right but it is much more predominant now. I wonder what will really happen when and if Brexit finally happens because I cannot see British workers doing the kind of jobs on the fruit and veg farms, the meat plants and factories the EU nationals do.
They had better. After all those immigrants took their jobs!
I know the definition of expat but I’ve always linked it to an ‘expat lifestyle’ where a group of immigrants mix socially and act in a more than British British manner. In my 31 years of living abroad I’ve seen plenty of those.
Mark are you sure about this! I have been here…just down the road from you…more or less.
But I think that you are joking…May will be conjured away like a goblin whirling through the brisk winds of a storm and somehow a good fairy will land on the doorstep at number 10.
No I have not been drinking alcohol …as I rarely do.
I still feel that it will not happen.
I think ex patriots is correct term. It doesn’t really matter though.
Not in the scheme of things. I think the term brexit is a little chav if thats the correct term. Still its stuck as the in word for our leaving the European Union and there you have it.
