‘I feel we’ll have to move to Ireland to give my children the life I want them to have.’
A caller to Jeremy Vine on 5 became emotional on Thursday when describing the impact that Brexit has had on her family and the wider implications it has had in Britain and beyond.
The caller in question, who was not named, contacted Jeremy Vine on 5 on Thursday following suggestions from Vine’s co-host Lowri Turner that people seeking passports for other countries outside of the UK were being unpatriotic.
The caller, who has worked in banking for over 10 years, revealed that she is in the process of applying for an Irish passport because her job has moved to Dublin and because her husband’s building company has lost 50% of its builders.
“We’re being ruined by Brexit,” the caller claimed, saying she was disgusted by Turner’s suggestions about a lack of patriotism as “it just shows that people in the media bubble have no idea the effect that this is having on us”.
“I’m sorry, this really upsets me, but we’re going to struggle to put food on our table because a few of you don’t like foreigners,” she added.
"We're going to struggle to put food on our table because a few of you don't like foreigners."
We got an emotional call from a mum this morning, who reckons her family is going to suffer because of Brexit. @TheJeremyVine | @TheRealNihal | #Brexit | #jeremyvine pic.twitter.com/UuaFqPnMvw
— Jeremy Vine On 5 (@JeremyVineOn5) January 3, 2019
“And I am patriotic because I love my country and I don’t know why we’re ruining it, I don’t know why we want economic hardship, I don’t know why I can’t give the best to my children and I feel we’ll have to move to Ireland to give my children the life I want them to have.”
Turner sought to defend herself and also pointed out that there was a variety of reasons why banks and businesses might struggle, saying: “Nobody wants businesses to go down but we live in a free market economy, anything could happen. We could have another recession.”
The caller responded by saying that environmental as well as economic reasons in the wake of Brexit have contributed to people leaving the UK, saying: “People from our building company have left, not because there isn’t loads of money to be made, there is, but because they don’t like the environment. The Romanians don’t want to be here because they’d rather be in Portugal or Spain where there probably isn’t as much work but the people are nicer, they think.”
You can hear the conversation in full in the clip above.
