Why does the UK have such a weird attitude to its citizens who live abroad ? No other country does this.

Time for a rant ! requiring a thread

prompted by article in today's @Times - full of a kind of snide Schadenfreude, so I thought maybe interesting to wonder why ../1

First of all I concede it's nice to actually get an article about the million and more of us who have made our lives in the EU

There are 12 000 Brits who depend on fish. Not a news bulletin goes by without mention of them.

Now, I watch everything !! about Brexit .../2

and I think I've seen maybe 4 ? 5 ? reports since the referendum about us UK citizens in the EU

Firstly the obvious "expat" thing - it's just so annoying as it's arrogant and colonial - even more so since calling EU citizens in the UK "migrants" (very loaded term) .../3

has now became "OK" apparently since the referendum. It creates an "us" and "them" narrative other countries wouldn't accept

Then there's the issue of the vote. The reason so many of us are so, SO annoyed about Brexit is that our lives have been thrown in turmoil by it .../4

and many of us (those here for more than 15 years) were denied a vote, despite it being promised in TWO Conservative manifestoes (and more recently when Johnson wrote a letter having the gall to say he was at last going to respect the pledge when it was way too effing late - /5

and of course nothing has happened about that anyway since)

French citizens abroad have, yep ! ELEVEN MP's in the National Assembly representing them, and votes for life. I constantly get reaction by followers amazed I wasn't allowed to vote in a "democratic" referendum .../6

that took my rights away - AND where the vote was so narrow, all of OUR votes probably WOULD have made a difference.

Going back to the article, there's also the stereotype thing and the snide tone about, I quote "la dolce vita going sour".
Most of us living here are working ./7

and anyone who's worked in someone else's country will tell you it's effing hard to work your way up "their" ladders. I spent ten years doing journalism for nothing basically before I got my first real job in the French media

The people who are retired to sunny Spain .../8

are, hello ?! people who couldn't afford houses in the UK. Have you ever seen one on Channel 4's "A Place in the Sun" over 200 000 ?

Anyway, there's loads more to say but this article just sums up the attitude. I guess other countries think much more of their citizens abroad ./9

as representatives of their culture. They certainly don't take away their rights, their vote and reduce them to snide stereotypes like the UK has.

I really do think it stems a lot too from the recent exceptionalism and nationalism of Brexit - basically considering .../10

anyone who goes abroad as a "traitor" to the cause. Anyone who doesn't believe me is welcome to look at my twitter feed signed by various Union Jack logo'd Brexiteers

Other countries really don't treat their "citizens living abroad" like that ... /11

And as we're not even 2 weeks now from real Brexit and it has caused way more turmoil in our lives than in most, it's something I wanted to get off my chest. I used to be so proud to represent my home country abroad

Thanks for reading and happy Sunday from not so sunny Paris