Labour argue the pressure must be kept on to prevent a hard Brexit

But although they did their best, it wasn’t enough to prevent May’s MPs following her orders to block these sensible measures.

Guaranteeing the position of EU citizens here in Oxford and across Britain would have stopped them being treated as bargaining chips, helped the position of Brits in other European countries, and shown the rest of Europe that we want to start the negotiations positively.

Instead, May’s brinkmanship is poisoning Britain’s reputation amongst our EU partners, and getting the negotiations off to a bad start.

Anneliese is a Member of the European Parliament, representing the whole of the South-East, who lives in Rose Hill. Tom is a city councillor for St Clement’s, an East Oxford ward.

Our inboxes and doorstep conversations are dominated by both UK and European nationals voicing their concerns about the huge insecurity that the government’s extreme approach to Brexit is creating.

When European nationals here in our city feel left in limbo, we feel it too - because they’re our neighbours, colleagues, doctors and nurses; friends and carers of our friends and family.

Oxford is more affected by this issue than many other parts of the country, with many of our public services heavily dependent on EU workers.

For example, EU citizens make up than one in ten members of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation’s total workforce. Nearly 1,400 non-British EU citizens currently work for the Foundation.

As one shopper in Headington recently told one of us, “I voted to leave, but I didn’t think that would mean that people like my nurse would be forced out”.

Our cash-strapped NHS is overstretched. Oxford hospitals especially struggle to recruit enough staff because of the high living costs in our city. How will our NHS cope with another big blow?

The shape of the Brexit deal will affect all of us, but the UK government is failing to listen to the Brit-ish people, whether they voted to Leave or to Remain.

Those who voted to Leave were told that current EU nationals would not be threatened by a Leave result — but their current position is un-clear.

We were also promised, of course, that we would be able to preserve our scientific and trading links, which are both also currently in the balance due to the government’s grandstanding.

Rather than adopting a statesmanlike approach to these negotiations, the UK Government is adopting the language of populists, and irresponsibly fanning the flames of intolerance.

This is all occurring while peoples’ genuine concerns are being ignored. Many people voted to leave the EU because they were fed up of politicians who seemed out of touch and unaccountable, and an economic system which was not benefitting them. Wages for the average worker in Britain have stagnated over the last ten years, while those for CEOs have doubled.

There’s little wonder that people wanted change, not least when the EU often seemed to be distant as well, and failing to take the actions needed to improve peoples’ living standards.

We spend a lot of time listening to people who feel spoken down to, ignored, and let down. Clearly, the current situation cannot continue. We need your backing to identify and fix Britain’s crisis of in-equality.

One side won the referendum, one side didn’t.

Oxford voted to Remain, but much of the rest of the country didn’t. Very few people, however, voted for the kind of extreme Brexit that Theresa May is currently touting. In particular, very few people voted for current EU migrants to be threatened, not least given the Leave campaign’s promises to the contrary.

We have to force this government to open up the process of Brexit, so that peoples’ voices can be heard. And progressive politicians must come up with answers to allow Britain and Oxford to go on being inclusive, tolerant, and proudly outward-looking, as well as more socially just.