Heartbroken Romanian caller leaves UK after "post-Brexit aggression"

2 June 2021, 14:46 | Updated: 2 June 2021, 14:57

Caller returns to Romania as he "wasn't treated like a human being"

This Romanian caller told LBC he had to leave the UK after 16 years living and working here because he felt "people turned against him" after the Brexit vote.

Caller Claudio said to Matt Frei that although he loves the UK and everything it has done for him, he felt people "frowned upon him" because he was Romanian "ever since Brexit."

"I'm just another human being," he said, "I used to work for a large company in the UK...I'm also a tennis coach and I was left with no job, no money and I was offered a job in Romania as an assistant tennis coach."

He said that his wife is in her final year of studying at a school of medicine and pharmacy - but if the paperwork is too much they will not try and return.

"Part of the UK has just turned aggressive against people like me and it was a feeling that I didn't like," Claudio said, "if I told someone I was from Romania all of a sudden I could feel like it was 'oooh hang on a second this guy is Romanian'.

"There was this rush of people coming from Eastern Europe in the past years and to an extent I understand why people are saying we've had enough of all this. I came to the UK with a purpose; I wanted to understand the culture, the language, to understand people.

"I did the best I could to be part of that society, and I paid a lot of money to educate myself, to learn the language, to have my Sunday carvery, I felt I was part of that society."