It’s 7:15am August 7th. The year is 2025. Through the small airplane window I am looking down onto the tarmac watching the suitcases being loaded in the pouring rain. I used to hate the wet English summers I remind myself. How wrong that thought feels now. Heathrow’s terminals, a familiar view since I arrived in the UK for the first time from Germany back in 1998. Hundreds of flights to business meetings across Europe and the USA from here. Visits to my friends and family back in Germany. First on my own, then with my British wife and later to take my English children to see their German grandparents, aunts & uncles.
It feels strange, totally unreal, knowing that this will be my last flight from Heathrow, last flight from here ever. Moments before I tried to disguise my awkwardness by jesting with the uniformed guy who escorted me to the plane. Joking that despite having flown so many times I have never received such a great personal service before.
I pinch myself, yes it is real, after 27 years I am forced to leave my home, England, the UK. Being deported. Leaving the country I spent the majority of my life in, almost all of my adult life. Forced back to a country that when I left was run by Helmut Kohl and was still struggling with the ramifications of the Soviet collapse.
How did I get into this situation, on this one way ticket away from what I class home to a country the UK Home Office classes as my home? It all started with a stupid and reckless moment last December. The quick pint after work. After all it was almost Christmas. Come on they said, just another quick one before we shoot off. Well, that second pint was one too many, at least that is what the policeman said when he breathalysed me. It spiralled out of control pretty quickly from there, conviction for drink driving. A week later my boss called me into his office. I got sacked on the spot. No car, no job he said.
At first my wife was supportive. Everyone will understand it was a mistake she used to say. My daughters 15 and 13 were extra nice to me, something that I really enjoyed. Full steam ahead, I said to myself. Everyday I sent out dozens of applications, everyday nothing came back. I started to grow angrier by the day. Shouting at my wife first, later at my daughters too. The glass of red wine in the evening to calm my nerves turned into a bottle by the end of February.
It’s over, my wife said in March. She couldn’t take it any more. My daughters were crying when I packed my bag. I left to stay with an old university friend for some days. Later I found out there is a term for that, sofa surfing, moving from friend to friend - calling in favours. The periods friends could bear me grew shorter and shorter, I quickly ran out of favours. Sometimes unable to find a place to sleep I used to travel the London busses all night. At least there was some warmth for one night. It was on one of those busses I was picked up. As it turned out I did not only get charged with fare dodging but was also charged with rough sleeping. When I was hoping for help, someone to drag me out of the uncontrollable misery, I was actually transported directly to the detention centre in Colnbrook, right next to Heathrow. Rough sleeping plus previous criminal conviction for drink driving as it turns out was enough to hand me over to the Home Office.
I remember well, back in 2019, when post Brexit many of my friends struggled to secure their right to stay as the UK/EU agreement did not cover their circumstances. A close friend, who cared for her ill British husband fulltime, had to move herself and him back to France. The tears at the airport when they left after 15 years in the UK together were heart-breaking. But that was a long time ago now.
Yes, newspapers were writing more and more stories about British criminals forced out of Spain and Ireland following government crackdowns in those countries. I would have never thought though that the UK Government would use the mandate given to them in the EU/UK agreement in December 2017 to base deportations on national criminal law to force me out of the UK. After 27 years contributing to the UK all I was hoping for was help and support. Being kicked out the moment I became a ‘burden’ feels incomprehensible and unjust.
In hindsight, had I known what power the EU allowed the UK to have over deportations with no safeguards on criminality definition I would have protested more in December 2018. In hindsight, but it’s too late now. My biggest regret now is that I will have to watch my two beautiful daughters grow up from abroad, via Skype.
