I miss Britain – but Brexitland could never be my home

When I moved back to the Netherlands this summer after six lovely years in Britain, I knew I was going to miss the place and that every now and then I would wonder if I had made the right decision. Everybody who voluntarily moves countries goes through this, and knows that these doubts can keep you awake all night.

Except that this time it is really, really easy for us to be at peace with our decision to leave the United Kingdom. We simply go online and read a story like the one that broke yesterday: “Ex-mayor of Ipswich denied citizenship after almost 40 years in UK”. The reason: the Home Office “cannot be satisfied” that Inga Lockington, who moved from Denmark in 1979, is a permanent resident.

No doubt the wave of publicity in this case will force the government into a U-turn. This government has made so many already it is a miracle that Theresa May isn’t permanently dizzy. But the underlying dynamic will not change, as the recent Windrush affair demonstrated all too well: this government is either incapable of, or unwilling to, treat citizens’ rights with respect, especially those who have their origins abroad.

This is the life in Britain that my family of five rejected: we chose not to spend our life in complete and utter insecurity over our rights and future status: the Dutch are among those EU citizens who would have to give up their national passport in order to acquire a British one – meaning that after Brexit I would lose not only the right to live and work in 27 EU states, but also the right to a dignified death that Dutch euthanasia laws allow. (And, of course, the Netherlands is almost 25% richer per capita than Britain.)

But worst of all, we could not be sure that we would even have qualified for that British passport – meaning total insecurity about the university fees for our children, and about their status when applying for jobs later in life. The same holds for our rights to social security and access to the NHS – if the NHS survives Brexit, that is.

Such insecurity might last for years, if not decades, considering that almost two years after the referendum result the British government still does not even have a position on what it would like the country’s relationship with the EU to be. Given the Tories’ woeful ineptitude, deluded thinking and many deceitful statements, it is also becoming increasingly hard to see how the EU could take any British position on good faith. How to reach an agreement when you cannot trust the other side to uphold it? For EU citizens in Britain there is no certainty about when the insecurity about their status might be settled.

Still, there are moments when I think that it was a mistake to move. London was such a great place to live, and our state school offered such excellent education. But then I remember just how many EU nationals have already left Britain, and how many are in advanced stages of leaving. The same is true of a number of British friends, who are fanning out across continental Europe.

To kill any remaining longings for a return to the UK I then go online once more to browse the billionaire-owned Brexit press. This is my way of reminding myself just how psychopathically vile and mendacious most of the UK press still is. Once Britain begins to pay the full economic, political and diplomatic price for what it recklessly voted for in June 2016, the Brexit media will not throw up their hands and beg for forgiveness for all their lies, falsehoods and empty promises. Instead they will blame lots of British individuals and institutions, but most of all they will direct their anger and hostility towards one place in particular: the EU.

Do I want to expose my children to the tabloid propaganda about EU aggression towards poor Brexit Britain, and the way it will be pumped into the heads of millions of Brits – including some in the school playground?

I still miss Britain every day. But I also know that this country I miss no longer exists.

• Joris Luyendijk, author of Swimming with Sharks: My Journey Into the World of the Bankers, wrote the Guardian’s banking blog