Brexit three months on: Are young EU nationals still scared of being kicked out of Britain?

Three months ago, the political landscape was shattered when 51.9% of voters opted for Britain to leave the European Union (EU) after 43 years.

The Leave win came as a huge shock to many of the estimated 3 million EU nationals living and working in the UK (7% of the population).

In July, the government announced it would not trigger Brexit until the beginning of 2017, at the earliest, while it is now anticipated that formal negotiations between between the UK and the EU may not start until 2017.

IBTimes UK caught up with some of the estimated 455,000 EU nationals who live in the British capital – including a few it had first met a day after the referendum – and asked them whether they were still worried about their future in London.

An 'unbearable silence' from the authorities

In the wake of the vote, a teary-eyed 25-year old performing artist from the French city of Suresnes (Hauts-de-Seine), Giulia Fournier-Mercadante, had blamed the older generation for a reckless vote she feared would affect her and her future plans. "I tried to not cry in front of customers and say this will be fine – but it's not going to be fine. Today is just a giant blizzard on the future," she had said at the time.

When IBTimes UK met with the young woman three months later, she explained that "nothing has really changed for me", but slammed the "unbearable silence" of the state around the consequences for EU nationals in the UK.

"Tell us what's going on, stop being silent," she said at the attention of goverment officials. "Silence is unbearable because it's super-threatful; you don't know what they are doing or thinking or what they are trying to do. Just communicate, just say something to us – tell us you are trying your best to make us stay and also make us want to stay. Because we felt a lot of hate and a lot of fear from the English people (towards) foreigners in their country (following the vote)."

In the aftermath of the referendum results, Pedro Sousa, manager of Busaba Eathai restaurant in Shoreditch, who arrived from Estarreja, a small town outside Portugal's second largest city Porto, in 2012, said he had no plans to leave, but expressed worries some of his staff might decide to leave.

IBTimes UK met the 30-year-old again ahead of the three month anniversary in his restaurant, where 95% of employees working front of house are EU nationals. "Since last time we spoke, I didn't see many changes happening here: All of my staff are still working here, they don't have plans to leave (the UK)."

Echoing the French artist, however, Sousa described how his mind was still not at rest.

Condemning the lack of information from officials, which he equated to a dizzying unknown, Sousa said: "Politicians should be more clear with the population because as you can see there is too much ignorance around because people don't know what is happening, they don't have a clue what can happen in two years' time – even before, the day after (the referendum) nobody knew what would happen two, three days or one week."

Three months on: How disbelief turned into confusion

Lea Surugue, whose family hails from Sèvres, a commune in the south-western suburbs of the French capital, recalled a sense of "disbelief" on learning about the news on 24 June. "I was shocked, not too sad, but could not take it in for a few days."

Describing how her fear of being expelled from Britain had evolved after "getting used to the idea", the 23-year-old who works in London's premier business area of Canary Wharf, added: "I think we will all be allowed to stay, the problem is not this anymore (...) I feel it's just an unfortunate event and what is more unfortunate is all the confusion about when there will be any political act about this."

A Spanish journalist from Santander, Cantabria, Eduardo Fernandez-Abascal, said his biggest fear was that the UK could face an Brexit-related economic setback.

"Most of the Spaniards are here in London because we suffered a big crisis in Spain. Even people who had a job came here to get a better job, to get a better salary, and that was our biggest concern," the 28-year-old said.

George Osborne, whose prominence for Remain in the EU was reprimanded by a sacking from Prime Minister Theresa May's government, on 23 September questioned May's ability to secure the best deal for Britain after Brexit.