This seems like a good time to write about Brexit, which finally came to pass five years ago this February 1st. No doubt, like the majority of Brits living in Europe at the time (many of us without the vote on this considerably important topic), or in Gibraltar, I was decidedly against it.
My passport used to say that I was a European citizen; and now, it doesn’t.
But let’s start with the British opinion on the Brexit, where a far from thunderous 52% of those who voted back in June 2016 wanted out of the EU.
The Telegraph says: ‘Brexit wasn’t a failure. It liberated us from the declining, dictatorial EU’ (the right-wing organ introduces the above with the slightly inelegant ‘The Telegraph is publishing a series of essays on How to Save Brexit from expert commentators…’).
To which I say ‘indeed’.
We might as well do The Express (the low-brow right-wing newspaper): ‘Has Brexit failed? It’s the patently stupid question that people won’t stop asking’. Answers on a postcard.
John Redwood writes the Conservative line: ‘The voters were right about Brexit. We now need a government to use the freedoms we have gained’.
The BBC brings us a cautious ‘Brexit has some benefits, No 10 says on anniversary’.
There’s Adam Bolton over at Sky News writing ‘Most people think leaving the EU was a mistake - but don't expect politicians to reopen the Brexit question. Five years on, even many of those who still champion Brexit, including Nigel Farage, concede that it has "failed" - so why are the main parties afraid to tell voters they got it wrong?’
The Guardian also wonders whether there’s a light in the tunnel: ‘Hope mixes with anger on Brexit’s fifth anniversary’.
The European press (unless they are supporters of the AfD or Geert Wilders) are worried that any fresh departure from the EU could only weaken the rest – and we all know that there are some dangerous creatures out there circling the wigwams (or was it the wagons?).
To turn to the Spanish media, we find El País with ‘55% of Britons regret the EU exit as the British government cautiously approaches Brussels. Keir Starmer is quietly seeking greater cooperation with Brussels to revive the UK economy’. elDiario.es, reporting from Oxford, has ‘Five years of Brexit, the reverse that has slowly sunk the United Kingdom amid popular disappointment. Only 11% of adults now believe that leaving the European Union has been a success while the country suffers the obstacles of the self-imposed border to buy tomatoes, sign footballers or sell sandwiches in its supermarkets outside the island’. Sandwiches always were a problem, that and bendy bananas.
The ABC assures its readers that ‘57% of the Brits would vote to re-join’. 62% of the Brits, says another Spanish paper doubling-down, think that ‘the Brexit was a fiasco’.
A local Brit blogger calls it ‘The worst day in modern British history’.
There is some question about whether the UK should look to shelter under the wings of the EU or grasp the US nettle held by Donald Trump. None of the Spanish media appear sanguine about the UK going it alone (Bravely, By Jingo), but accept that there won’t be a cautious Return to the European Union for a long time, although, as a pundit tells 20Minutos, the two powers need each other.
How’s business here down the line? Todotransporte says ‘After five years, Brexit has not been so bad (for Spain)’. It says that Spanish exports to the Sceptred Isle are actually up by 25% over 2020 with Spain enjoying an annual surplus of 12,500 million euros.
To return to those Brits who have a connection or a sympathy towards Spain, we have the (apparent) future issue of the 100% tax on non-EU citizens buying a home here, and the ongoing one of those who own a place, but don’t have residence and thus fall under the 90/180 day issue, obliging them to leave the Schengen Area – and indeed their Spanish home – for lengthy and unnecessary periods. This second issue, of course, wouldn’t be fully resolved by the UK re-joining the EU – it would have to sign into the Schengen Treaty.
Which, ‘like Breturn’, is a non-starter.