Tanja Bueltmann is a citizens’ rights campaigner and believes that the UK’s place should be at the heart of the EU.
An EU citizen herself, Tanja, like the 3.7 million EU citizens who made the UK their home, is immediately affected by Brexit and by the upheavals it has brought – for both EU citizens in the UK, and Britons in EU countries. For her, for all 5 million lives immediately caught up in Brexit, for all our families, Brexit is intensely personal.
Forced to apply to stay in one’s own home? Shameful doesn’t get more shameful than that.
While Tanja continues to campaign for the unilateral safeguarding of citizens’ rights for all as they exist now, she recognizes the importance of working with the provisions set out in the draft Withdrawal Agreement. That is why Tanja supports the future plans of the3million that centre on outreach for EU citizens, and monitoring the Home Office.
The desire to support the fundraising effort of the3million so that they are able to do that explains how the idea for the #EUcitizensChampion campaign was born. EU citizens need further support to ensure rights are protected. They need champions to help with that. To learn more about why Tanja founded this campaign, read her article ‘You’re safe here … until you’re not’: EU citizens in the UK are fighting for their rights.
Tanja has also written for The Guardian and the THE among others.
Campaigning is only one part of Tanja’s story, however. In ‘normal’ life she is a Professor of History, with a specific focus on diaspora and migration history, at Northumbria University in Newcastle upon Tyne. So in professional terms too Tanja has an interest in Brexit.
Tanja is not formally involved with the3million, but recognizes the group’s crucial role as the only not for profit organisation formed after the EU referendum to protect the lives of EU citizens who made the UK their home.
You can follow Tanja on Twitter @cliodiaspora