Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors

Czechs in Britain face Brexit with shock, fears

Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin
Table of Contents


London/Prague, June 27 (CTK special correspondent) – Czechs living and working in Britain and addressed by CTK have expressed a shock, sadness and fears in reaction to the result of the Brexit referendum.

Some of them would like to ask for a British passport, others are waiting for the future developments. Many of them have criticised British politicians for having “no plan B.”

“It is sad, like many people, I did not expect this,” said Petr Torak, a Czech-born Romany who serves with the police in Peterborough and who received the Order of the British Empire for his work for the Romany community in Britain last year.

“Many people fear a lot, they consider it a personal attack as if they did not want to have us here,” he added.

He said dozens of people had turned to him with questions about the consequences for them since Friday, though nothing would change for immigrants from the EU for long.

Torak and others are considering moving to Scotland. “It is too early to do so, but we will definitely apply for a British passport as soon as possible,” he added.

Czech artist Hynek Martinec said his dream about Britain and Europe had vanished on Thursday. However, life goes on, added Martinec, who won the BP Portrait Award in London in 2007.

“Our generation born around 1980 did to have to revolt… After the 1989 revolution [which toppled communism in Czechoslovakia], we could travel, the West was accommodating, everything interconnected. Thanks to European grants as Erasmus and Socrates, those who wanted could study abroad. We were living the dream of our parents and grand-parents who wanted to go to the West, but it was complicated for them. Now the dream ends all of a sudden – for Britain and for the EU,” Martinec said.

“There is certainly a slight fear of the unknown. No one knows what exactly it means. However, this is also a good opportunity for shopping. The pound is down and so is the FTSE (Financial Times Stock Exchange) index,” said a 30-year-old Czech man, who works for the Mayfair investment fund in London and who requested anonymity.

“Britain is a big country with a strong economy that has already survived a lot and will cope with this, too,” he added.

However, he said he was concerned about the rest of the EU and mainly the Czech Republic.

According to Eliska Naegele, who studies at the London School of Economics (LSE), it is too early to draw a final conclusion, it depends on what will happen after PM David Cameron steps down definitively.

Young people’s reactions to Brexit are mostly negative. Many of them have a feeling that the older generation, voting for Brexit, decided on their fate, but the turnout among young people was considerably lower than in older generations and this is the consequence of democracy, Naegele added.

Ondrej Jakubov, an electrical engineer working with a U.S. firm in Bristol, is of the view that “the campaign was aimed against immigrants.” “However, my dentist is from Spain, my GP from India, mostly Poles are serving me in a supermarket. Almost a half of the staff in my office are foreigners from all over the world… We are shocked that nationalists are rising in Britain,” he said.

Not even the Brexit supporters know what to do now, his wife Monika pointed out.

Other Czechs in Britain, addressed by CTK, share her view.

“No one has any plan B, which is a disaster,” Martinec said.

Hedvika Matlova, who works in an architectonic studio in London, said she felt a terrible disappointment and loss.

“I have been living here for ten years, I feel being European – neither English, nor Czech – and I will get married and want to live here. This is the time of insecurity and fears,” she told CTK.

“There was no jubilation, no screaming of joy, rather anger, uncertainty and disillusionment” after the referendum, Czech architect Petr Stefek said.

For some people, mainly those living in small English post-industrialist towns and for the oldest generation, the vote against EU may have naively become a vote against the establishment, he added.

Barbora Halabrinova, who works in London as a baby-sitter, said the referendum result had surprised her immensely, but that not much would change for working people. There have always been and will be foreigners in England, she added.

She and her friends agree that Britain will manage it, but the government will have to make a great effort to build a strong and stable country again.

Nevertheless, her British friends with Irish roots are considering seeking Irish citizenship, she added.

most viewed

Subscribe Now