Research funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) aims to create a one-stop shop for reliable updates amid fears misinformation could prompt hundreds and thousands of British expats to return to the UK without having property or pensions to support them.
There are reportedly around 1.2 million UK-born people living in EU nations such as France and Spain and experts fear an exodus, post-Brexit, will have a knock-on effect on health and social care services in the UK, which are already at breaking point.
Database
Academics will begin building the database over the next six weeks. It will involve a list of information channels used by UK citizens in each EU country.
These would include legal, health, financial and property advice services, English language local newspapers, Facebook pages, blogs and chat rooms, researchers said.
The final directory will then be shared with trusted parties such as government agencies, legal charities and the Citizen’s Advice Bureau.
However, the database will not be released fully into the public domain for fear of exploitation by commercial and lobby organisations.
‘Missing link’
Lead researcher Dr Brendan Burchell from Cambridge’s department of sociology said: “UK citizens abroad need to be empowered to make sound, informed decisions during Brexit negotiations on whether to remain in their adopted homelands or return to the UK.
“However, at the moment there is a missing link: There is no database of the conduits through which high-quality information can be communicated that targets specific countries or sub-groups of UK migrants.This is what we aim to build over the coming weeks,” he said.
‘Fake news’
Burchell added that without access to “well-grounded information” that updates throughout the Brexit process, the current void will be increasingly filled with “dangerous speculation and even so-called ‘fake news’”.
He is particularly concerned about British expats over-65s living in Europe falling prey to “investment scams” and “partisan groups” looking to lowball property sales.
Professor Maura Sheehan, an economist from Edinburgh Napier University’s Business School, who is also working on the project, believes that if panic is sparked it could lead to a domino effect in certain expatriate communities.
“The idea that we could see socially isolated baby-boomer expats back in the UK with health conditions, financial woes and even ending in destitution as a result of bad decisions based on misinformation should not simply be written off as so-called ‘remoaner’ hysteria,” she said.
