Member-only story
Three ways Brexit made British lives worse
The reality that slaps people looking to move to the EU
I had always imagined that by the age of 30 I would have moved somewhere in Spain. Sevilla or Valencia were my preferred cities. Fortunately, at the age of 29 I had already made the move to Split, Croatia.
I left the UK with a five-year plan, to see what I could achieve if I didn’t flit around as much. Little did I know what was to come. First it was Cameron’s EU reform discussions and subsequent deal, followed by the referendum in 2016. Then the negotiations, which dragged on and on and on. Finally in 2020, the UK left, to a certain degree.
But nothing will change they said.
Well, here’s how it did, and how anyone now looking to move is worse off.
Your old EU rights aren’t protected
Since I was a legal resident in Croatia before the final withdrawal, I retained my rights that an EU citizen would. Now what lots of people don’t get is there are rights agreed on an EU level and on a bilateral level, so it isn’t as straightforward as copy paste.
For example, right after Brexit, Brits no longer had the right to buy in Croatia because the right to buy is a bilateral agreement based on nationality rather than…
