Five million EU and UK citizens have spent 1,000 days in limbo. It has to end

What does it feel like to live in limbo for 1,000 days? Millions of EU citizens in the UK, and our British friends who live in another EU country, no longer have to imagine it. We have now reached that milestone. A milestone we never wanted to reach nor should have had to reach. But here we are. And the chaos and uncertainty has never been greater.

These 1,000 days tell two stories. First, they tell our story – the human story of 5 million people and our employers, friends, lovers and families who have, in many ways, been in limbo with us for all this time. Our story now remains largely silent. It is a silence interspersed with bouts of outrage and shame, but such feelings, however well meaning, do not help anyone. They cannot undo 1,000 days of uncertainty, and they cannot, on their own, give certainty now.

The human story of those 1,000 days saw EU citizens become the voiceless targets of hate during the EU referendum campaign and remain so afterwards. Reports of hate crimes directed at EU citizens are again increasing. It is still a fight to even be heard. Lessons from 2016 have not been learned. Nothing much has changed.

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Except that everything has changed. As a result of the prime minister’s red lines, we have already been transformed from EU citizens to a group of people forced to apply to stay in our home. The purpose of settled status: to suck all of us, through a retroactive change of status, into UK immigration law, with all the potential consequences that entails. Elderly EU citizens who have lived in the UK for decades, young children born here – all now at risk because of a policy that puts people last and hostility first. How does one come to terms with having to apply for permission to stay in one’s home?

More critically, it is clear that the majority of UK and EU politicians and commentators are failing to grasp the seriousness of the situation, of that loss of home for millions. I have seen how bad the situation is every day for the last 1,000 days in thousands of messages I have been sent. They note anxiety, anger, uncertainty. For a growing number of EU citizens, that continuing uncertainty has already had a severe impact on their wellbeing and mental health.

That brings me to the second story of the last 1,000 days. It is a story of failure – the failure of politicians from both sides to protect us. While everyone promised that citizens’ rights were the first priority, our rights continue to remain part of the negotiations while a no-deal Brexit now looms larger than ever before. It is clear that the cause for all this is Theresa May. She is the one who dragged citizens’ rights into the negotiations, pandering to the extreme fringes of society, driven by her own personal obsession with bringing down the number of immigrants in the UK. At every single turn May chose the most hostile option.

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Parliament is at least trying. It overwhelmingly supported Alberto Costa’s amendment a few weeks ago – that requires the prime minister to seek the ringfencing of our rights – and sent a message that could not be clearer: enough is enough. The rollercoaster ride for 5 million people must finally come to an end. It was a welcome and unique statement of unity at a time of deep divisions. That is why the failure of the EU to, so far, agree the same and support ringfencing, is so tragic.

EU leaders have to ask themselves what they stand for. What the EU project stands for. I am not asking these questions lightly. If someone as pro-EU as I am starts to ask such questions, it should be a concern. Protecting citizens’ rights from the continuing Brexit chaos is not cherry-picking. It is not giving in to the UK. It is not creating a mini-deal. It is a question of basic humanity. It is the only human thing to do in order to end the limbo for 5 million people.

Some citizens, such as those from Switzerland, are already protected in this way. So surely we can protect everyone. There is no legal obstacle to this, it is simply a question of political will. And after 1,000 days of limbo we desperately need that will.

“Europe does not grow out of treaties,” former German foreign minister Klaus Kinkel said in 1992, “it grows from the hearts of its citizens or it does not grow at all.” EU leaders would do well to remember that.

• Tanja Bueltmann is a professor of history at Northumbria University. She is an EU national whose work focuses on diaspora and migration history