Exeter Law School
a LOGO FOR THE RESEARCGH PROJECT LOVE BORDERS BREXIT. THE WORD LOVE HAS A HEART ICON IN PLACE OF THE V.

Love, Borders, Brexit Podcast – Personal stories of Post-Brexit Couples

Posted by The Law School

22 April 2026

What happens now, after Brexit, when an EU citizen and a UK citizen fall in love?

For the last few years the ESRC-funded Brexit Couples project has been charting the post-Brexit experiences of UK-EU couples, who would previously have enjoyed an almost unconditional right to live in the UK. More than fifty couples shared their experiences of the immigration system after Brexit with the project team.

As the project comes towards the end, some of these very personal stories are told first hand in a podcast series, ‘Love, Borders, Brexit‘. The series hears directly from EU/UK couples whose love stories were disrupted by Brexit, and their encounters with the UK’s notoriously difficult immigration system. Couples such as Andy and Linda who were separated during Andy’s cancer treatment or Gavin and Stephanie, where one mistake in an application meant Stephanie was separated for months from her partner and children. In the sixth episode the Brexit Couples team discuss what they learnt from their research about the problems now faced by UK-EU couples who want to live together in the UK. 

‘Love, Borders, Brexit’ is produced and presented by Lincoln van der Westhuizen, a London based podcast producer who has direct experience of the partner migration system. The series is available on the Brexit Couples website and on all major podcast platforms.

The project team are:

  • Prof Katharine Charsley (Project Lead): A social scientist at the University of Bristol who is interested in issues of marriage/family and migration
  • Prof Helena Wray (Co-Lead): An expert on migration law, particularly as it relates to families, at the University of Exeter Law School
  • Dr Nicole Hoellerer (Project Researcher): An anthropologist and Senior Researcher at the University of Bristol whose work focuses on migration
  • Dr Jasmin El-Shewy (Project Researcher): Now a Lecturer in Law at Newcastle University, she has previously worked as a legal adviser and researcher on forced displacement
  • Dr Ryan Lutz (Project Administrator): University of Bristol – His PhD, undertaken at the University of Bristol, explored migrant integration policies in the UK.

You can contact them via email: brexitcouples-project@bristol.ac.uk

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