From insecurity to insecurity: Black and Ethnic Minority Europeans in the UK

On the tube. Flickr/ Adrian Brady. Some rights reserved.The recent vote in the House of Commons not to
guarantee the rights of EU citizens resident in the UK refreshed concerns among
many European citizens who had, perhaps not felt compelled to worry much about
their position in UK society before last year’s BREXIT referendum. Yet in the
aftermath of the Brexit vote, we have seen xenophobic verbal and physical
attacks against those thought to be European citizens, as well as Black and
Ethnic Minority British citizens.

This
is of course deeply worrying, as any rise in xenophobia and racism undermines
democratic forms of sociality. One aspect which has perhaps not caught the
public imagination arises from one of the calls of the pro-Brexit campaigners.
They have emphasised that in demanding curbs on European migration, they are ‘calling for an end
to discrimination in the treatment of people wanting to come here’ (“Fair and Controlled”, 2017). They argue that by controlling EU citizens’
migration to the UK, they are ending discrimination in favour of EU citizens,
giving more opportunities to enter the country for non-EU migrants.

Underlying this argument is
the assumption that EU citizens are white and ethnically European. This
reproduces racialized ideas of what it means to be European, in particular ignoring
the ways in which European identity is deeply enmeshed in colonial projects.
Such a view problematically equates Europeanness with whiteness. This ignores
the presence of people of colour in Europe, whether it be centuries-old Black
European communities or those who migrated more recently, often as parts of
postcolonial or labour migrations.

Challenging research

Our
recent research on the experiences of recent Black and Ethnic Minority migrants
from Greece and Spain challenges such an argument that pitches European
citizens and Black and minority migrants’ rights against each other.

As
practices of counting ethnic minorities or migrants differ nationally, it is not
easy to put a number to ethnic minority Europeans. Analysing Eurostat records (Eurostat, 2016), we found that the countries with the highest number of new
citizenships were Spain (225, 000; i.e. 23% of the EU28 total), the UK (207,
500; i.e. 21%), Germany (115, 100; i.e. 12%), Italy (100, 700; i.e. 10 %) and
France (97, 300; i.e. 10% of the EU28 total). Most new citizenship applications
in the EU (89%) were from third country nationals, with the highest numbers
coming from citizens of Morocco, followed by citizens of India, Turkey,
Colombia, Albania and Ecuador.

Black and Ethnic Minority EU citizens
in the UK

Among
ethnic minority residents and citizens of European countries, there are also a
number who have taken up their rights to free movement within the EU. Among the
3.3 million EU citizens who live in the UK, there are ethnic minority EU
citizens. Our recent pilot research has looked at the experiences and
motivations of Black, Minority and Ethnic European citizens who have migrated
to the UK.

Our research focused on the
countries most likely to have become sending states, following the Great
Recession in 2008, i.e. Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain and looked in
particular at Latin Americans and Eastern Europeans as the ‘New Europeans’ most
likely to exercise their newly acquired right of onward migration to the UK.

Looking at the breakdown of
these ‘New Europeans’ in 2013, 30,200 Moroccans, 38,900 Colombians and 38,400
Ecuadorians were granted citizenship in Spain, which also has the highest
number of new citizenships granted (Eurostat, 2016). Italy has also granted citizenship to 25,400 Moroccans and 13,700
Albanians, whereas Portugal has granted citizenship to 5,100 Brazilians. A
large number of Albanians were also granted citizenship in Greece (25,800).
Data from the Census in 2011 in England and Wales might assist in understanding
some of these onward migrations; nevertheless, it is still quite difficult to
provide an estimate of more recent migrations (i.e. post-2011) or migrations of
BME ‘New Europeans’ in the UK.

Previous research
found that BME Europeans, especially where they were highly educated and
skilled, were motivated in their migration to the UK by factors such as joining
an existing ethnic community or family members, the relative ease of self
employment in the UK, as well as what they perceived to be a more
multiculturalist society where ethnic differences were more welcomed than they
felt in their European home countries.
However, as we spoke with our research participants in spring 2016, the
foremost reason why our interview partners had moved to the UK was economic.
Our small sample was comprised of migrants from Spain and Greece, who had been
born in Latin America or Eastern Europe. Their experiences clearly reflect the
impact of the economic crisis in Southern Europe, where they could not make
ends meet any more.

Jose, an 18 year old from
Colombia, who had attended school in Spain and worked part time on farms and in
construction points out how the financial crisis affected the whole family:

It was the
crisis in Spain, we couldn’t live there any more. My father lost his job and
then we lost the house too. He had bought a house and we got evicted, as we
couldn’t pay.

This
decision for many came at the end of a prolonged journey of being in insecure
employment situations, often without a contract. Our interview partners had
often felt settled in their European countries and, until the financial crisis,
had not contemplated moving onto a new country. Manjola found it hard to leave
her home in Greece, where she felt she had built her whole life. However
because of destitution, she was compelled to migrate to the UK:

With no jobs
in Greece, I couldn’t keep the house any more, there was no money for the rent.
(….) What can I do? Go back to Greece? How? There are no jobs there! Go back to
Albania? There are no jobs there either! Let alone that in Albania I’m even
more of a stranger than I am in Greece!

While their migration to the
UK was strongly motivated by economic factors, accessing more regular and
regulated jobs also allowed our participants to spend more time as a family.
Laetitia and her husband initially migrated from Bolivia. During their time in
Spain, they ‘used to work from Sunday to Sunday, no day off. Every day. And it
was really-really hard for us. We did this job for 9 years.’ In the UK she
works as a cleaner for two hours a day, ‘5-7 am before my children wake up. And
my husband works from 9 am in the morning till 11 pm at night. So, his working
schedule is one day double-shift, followed by one day off. So yes, much better
balance. And my older daughter now says, oh now I have my family, I have my
mother…. ‘

So, while migration to the
UK could mean immediate improved everyday life for some of our interview
partners, we also heard about exploitation, such as Amelia’s experience in the
workplace: ‘I had an experience, working as a waitress and they… didn’t pay
me.’  For most, this type of experience
was part of their early days in the UK and the more they had access to local
knowledge, the better they were able to organise their lives to avoid or
challenge such exploitation. However, as we spoke to them right after the vote
to leave the EU, the spectre of Brexit cast anxieties and doubts over their
future aspirations. 

BREXIT a looming new insecurity

The issue of Brexit came up
for most of our interview partners. They are worried about how these political
developments will affect them. Ronaldo is a very determined young man from
Bolivia, who follows his dream to become a policeman, which he could not
realise in Spain:

The main
concern is if the UK is going to stay in Europe or not. Because of course, this
would affect my plans tremendously. What if I start to train as a policeman
here and my dream is cut short for the second time?

Juliana, an Ecuadoria-Spanish
woman in her early 50s, brings up the political situation straight away:

‘The
main concern is the current political situation, because we only have European
citizenship, not British citizenship. We will see what happens.’

While other participants
were more preoccupied with personal concerns, all our interview partners were
keen to contest the idea that migrants were benefit tourists, an argument they
very much associated with debates before the BREXIT vote. Ronaldo in his early
20s, a Bolivian-Spaniard:

The people
that I know, no one gets benefits. Especially the young people. They go to
work, they work really hard. They wake up at 3 
o’clock in the morning, they work until 8 o’clock, they go to English
classes after, they usually just get some sleep on the bus So, what I see here
is that, everyone makes so many sacrifices, in order to make it. I feel very
moved by that, seeing people trying so hard.

Svetlana, in her late
forties, who is Russian-Greek feels that the media and politicians

 …didn’t’ tell the truth when they did all this
Brexit campaign.They blamed everything on migrants and it is not true. At all.
(…) We try to make our own way here, working. If all the Europeans leave, who
work so hard and they pay taxes, how are they going to manage to keep the
benefit system in the first place?

They
clearly worry about their future rights to live and work in the UK. A worry
which has not been addressed by the current political climate of ‘Hard Brexit’
as exemplified in recent statements by the Prime Minister which refuse to
guarantee the rights of EU citizens living in the UK.

While
all EU citizens living in the UK have to face an uncertain future, those BME
Europeans, who arrived in the country post-2011 are more likely to be
threatened. As we have found in our study, they are mostly in low-skilled
precarious employment positions, so they lack the social and economic capital
that characterised earlier, mostly white European migrations. Furthermore, in
the current stream of xenophobia and racism, they are marginalised both as
Europeans with an insecure outlook and as racial or ethnic Other, stereotyped
as benefit or health tourists.

Hence, this ‘minority within
a minority’ has experienced one insecurity after another. The recent vote in
the House of Commons and Theresa May’s strong views on using EU citizens’
residence rights as a bargaining chip in BREXIT negotiations are deeply
worrying for all EU citizens, including this minority within a minority in the
UK. Having experienced multiple and successive insecurities already, they
should be allowed to plan their futures. This requires addressing racism and
xenophobia against EU citizens and Black and Minority Ethnic citizens and
migrants not as separate but connected pheonomena before they can further erode
the social fabric of our communities, workplaces and cities. 

 

References

Ahrens, Jill Melissa Kelly and Ilse van Liempt
(2016) Free Movement? The Onward
Migration of EU Citizens Born in Somalia, Iran, and Nigeria, Population,
Space Place 22, 84–98

Bhambra, Gurminder K (2015) The
refugee crisis and our connected histories of colonialism and empire.

Eurostat (2016). Statistics
Explained: Acquisition of Citizenship Statistics. 

“Fair and
Controlled Immigration” (2017). In Change
Britain.

Gutiérrez Rodríguez, E.; Boatca,
M. and S. Costa. 2010. "Introduction:
Decolonizing European Sociology: Different paths towards a pending
project." In Decolonizing
European Sociology: Transdisciplinary Approaches, edited by
Gutiérrez Rodríguez, E.; Boatca, M. and S. Costa, 1–13. Farnham, UK: Ashgate

Office
of National Statistics (2016): Migration
Statistics Quarterly Report, 2016.

Office
of National Statistics (2015): 2011 Census
Analysis. Population by Country of Birth and Nationality Report. August 2015.

Office of National Statistics (2016). UK
Labour Market: Estimates of Employment, Unemployment, Economic Inactivity and
other Employment-Related Statistics for the UK. Statistical Bulletin, June 2016.

Office
of National Statistics (2016) EMP06:
Employment by Country of Birth and Nationality. Dataset: May 2016.