Freedom of movement changed my life

In UNITElive’s third and final instalment of our series talking to members about what the EU has meant to them, Unite’s Myles Derbyshire explains how freedom of movement helped him find work.

Most of us will have never known what it’s actually like to be a migrant – what it means to be suddenly living in a country far from friends and family, to be in some cases unable to communicate, to be dropped into a strange land whose customs and cultures are not your own.

Unite member and electrician Myles Derbyshire, originally from Liverpool, did just that for more than half his life.

“I’ve been an economic migrant for 23 years,” he explained. “I was a teenager in the 80s and early 90s when you couldn’t find a job in Liverpool no matter how hard you tried. Nearly everyone I knew who lived in Liverpool back then was unemployed.”

‘I struggled’

When he was 20, Myles moved to London, worked for a time in Australia and, taking advantage of the freedom of movement afforded to all EU citizens, he eventually ended up in Spain.

“The first few months were really hard because I struggled learning the language. I couldn’t hold down a job for long, not because I didn’t know what I was doing, but because I couldn’t understand what was being asked of me.”

A year later, it all started to come together and Myles could speak Spanish well. Finally able to understand his bosses, he found work servicing fire alarms and later in a factory making wind turbines. He stayed for 10 years.

“Those years I lived in Spain were some of the most personally rewarding years of my life,” he said. “I was welcomed with open arms by the Spanish people who I lived and worked with; my daughter was born there and I had the opportunity to learn a language fluently and be immersed in another culture.”

“If it weren’t for our membership in the European Union – for freedom of movement – I would not have had that opportunity. And I want my daughter to grow up to live in a world where she has the same opportunities to work hard, earn money and learn about other cultures.

‘We all want the same thing’

“Generally most people in the UK don’t take advantage of freedom of movement unless it’s to go on holiday or retire. That’s because we’ve had it pretty good here economically. But what if it all goes bendy here at home and we’re no longer in the EU? We won’t be able to go find work easily in other European countries like we can now.”

Having been a migrant himself for several years, Myles rejects the anti-migrant rhetoric that’s dominated the press in the run-up to the EU referendum.

“One thing I’ve learned about travelling and living in other countries is that there aren’t huge differences between people – you might speak another language but we all want the same thing,” he said. “We all want to be able to earn a bit of money, to have a roof over our heads and to be able to support our families and contribute to society. That’s true whether you’re English, Spanish or Polish.”

Myles fears what the consequences of a Brexit might mean for his five-year-old daughter.

“I’m divorced now, and my daughter’s mother is Spanish. They both live here in London near me and thanks to being in the EU, I’m able to spend time with my daughter regularly. If they decided to go back to Spain and the UK leaves the EU, I can’t simply pack up and go with them.

“I can’t imagine how I would cope without being able to see my daughter anymore. She’s the single most important thing that motivates me. ”

Anger

Myles understands why so many working-class people feel let down by the political establishment and why, out of anger and frustration, they may vote Leave.

“I grew up in a working-class family in the era of Thatcher in Liverpool – one of the cities which suffered most from that government’s policies. I know what it’s like to feel angry and to feel betrayed by the system which is supposed to serve you and not beat you down.

“But voting to Leave the EU is not the answer,” Myles argues. “When the Leave campaign, when people like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, say ‘Let’s take back control’, they don’t mean control for us ordinary working people. When have we ever been given control from the powers that be?

Myles believes voters should hold on to what the EU already gives us, instead of the empty promises that leaders of the Leave campaign have made that may never materialise.

“They say they’ll use the money we save from what we put into the EU to fund the NHS, but how can we really believe that? These are the same people who have been behind cuts to public services for years. There’s no way of knowing whether the money we save is going to go to improve our local councils, our schools, or our infrastructure – it’s likely that it won’t.

“What we can be sure of is that aspects of EU that do benefit the little man – workplace rights, a higher court to go to if justice isn’t served in a British court – these things we actually have now,  and they’ll all be gone if we vote to Leave.

“I don’t care if we can’t have bendy cucumbers,” Myles added.  “I’m voting to remain for my daughter’s future, one in which she’s free to live and work elsewhere, where she’s part of a more open world with more opportunities. Who wouldn’t want that for their children?”