London-based Germans warned not to speak their language in public after Brexit vote
A lawyer who has lived in London for 13 years passed on the advice after saying foreigners were feeling "stronger xenophobia" since the vote
GERMANS have been warned not to speak in their native tongue in London following the Brexit vote.
Lawyer Carmen Prem, a resident of London for 13 years, wrote foreigners were feeling "stronger xenophobia" since the referendum, in an article for a German newspaper.
She said she no longer feels safe speaking in German in public.
Speaking to the publication Die Welt she said there is "a new bitterness, an anger which hardly any of the countless non-British on the island expected".
The mother-of-two added: "If you are out with the children, maybe don't speak German too loudly at the moment."
She claimed a bus driver had recently ordered people to "speak English" on her way home from work, and she had noticed a change in the mood of people towards foreigners.
She said: "The tone has changed. No Briton would ever say 'we do not want you here'.
"But it is now 'we and you'."
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In the month after the UK voted to leave the EU xenophobic incidents reported to police rose by 41 per cent, including the alleged hate-crime in the murder of Polish man Arek Jozwik at the end of August.
A German professor, Mischa Dohler, told Die Welt that for the first time since moving to London 15 years ago he is considering options elsewhere.
He said he had turned down a teaching post at Cambridge University because of the uncertainty following the EU Referendum.
Earlier this week shocking CCTV footage emerged of a thug attackin a Spanish man with a plank of wood as he shouted at him to “speak English”.
Daniel Way was captured in May on CCTV ripping the wood off a nearby building and running towards his 27-year-old victim.
Among a string of attacks on foreign businesses and people since the vote to leave the EU was a devastating fire attack on an Eastern European store in Norwich in July.
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