A message to the Brits forced to return home from
Spain: this is the Brexit you voted for
It’s tragic how little the British public was informed
about the benefits of free movement, or of the variety of things they would
stand to lose upon Britain’s departure from the EU
Andrea
Carlo
@andcarlom
2 hours ago
In the
midst of what seems increasingly akin to a burgeoning cold war between the UK
and the EU, one attention-grabbing story has been hitting the headlines:
reports of hundreds of Britons fleeing Spain to avoid deportation.
As the
account goes, around 500 British migrants living in Spain have supposedly left
the country for fear of being “booted out”, some saying within a matter of
days. “My application has been rejected and we are on our way home – my wife is
in tears,” said Costa-basted Brit Shaun Cromber, who admitted to voting Leave
without “realis[ing] it would come to this”.
A closer
look, however, reveals a rather different picture – and one that would place
the matter squarely in Britain’s hands.
To begin
with, any Briton who lawfully settled in Spain prior to the Brexit deadline at
the end of last year has their right to stay covered by the withdrawal
agreement. Unlike in the UK, where EU nationals have been made to apply through
the Settlement Status scheme, Britons residing in Spain merely need to register
through self-declaration – an even simpler process than what we have in
Britain.
On the
other hand, Britons who came to Spain from the start of this year will only be
allowed to stay visa-free for 90 days within a 180-day period, like in other
Schengen states. As such, any of those who have found themselves fearing for
their future are individuals who did not make the deadline, or even longer-term
residents who have been unwilling to declare residency. Both the British and
Spanish governments have insisted that there are no plans to forcibly deport
any Briton living in the country.
Commenting
on the story, Sue Wilson, chair of the “Bremain in Spain” activist group for UK
nationals living in the country, noted that “overstayers should be aware that
they are no longer EU citizens and will be treated as third country nationals…
these rules are not new, and the Spanish, or any other EU government, are not
to blame for the position we’ve been put in.”
Her
thoughts were echoed by Debbie Williams, a Welsh resident in Spain and fellow
campaigner: “While I am sympathetic to those who tried to make it,” she told
me, “I believe that anyone who entered the country after the transition period
ended should expect to abide by the Spanish immigration rules. It’s always been
clear what ending freedom of movement would mean.”
Once you
strip away the drama and incendiary language from these reports, you’re left
with nothing more than a tale of the Brexit boomerang coming back to hit us on
the head. But at the same time, the story also illustrates a wider, deeper
point – namely just how much we’ve lost by giving up freedom of movement.
The right
to free movement between EU states has been routinely pillaged by Brexiteers
since (and before) the Leave campaign started. Politicians and tabloids spoke
of “migrant workers flooding Britain”, invoking images of cataclysmic invasions
and deluges. Aside from the inflammatory and even racist undertones to such
rhetoric, it crucially ignored a major part of the story: that freedom of
movement is and has always been a two-way street – one that Britons had been
benefiting from for decades.
It’s tragic
how little the British public was informed about the benefits of free movement,
or of the variety of things they would stand to lose upon Britain’s departure
from the EU. One viral tweet – capturing the surprise of a young woman’s
Brexit-supporting parents upon discovering they could no longer access certain
Sky content in Spain – provides a small but emblematic snapshot of this.
But
ultimately, however it may pain many – especially those on the Remain camp –
Britain chose Brexit. In 2019, the country was given a chance to vote out Boris
Johnson and his hard Brexiteer aides, and yet it gave him one of the biggest
parliamentary majorities in recent memory.
One can sit
back and blame the first-past-the-post system, or look at how 52 per cent of
votes went to parties supporting a second Brexit referendum, but that doesn’t
change the facts on the ground. Johnson’s vision was (and remains, if opinion
polls are to go by) the preferred choice for Britain among the electorate. His
victory is just as much an endorsement of Brexit as it is a collective failure
of opposition parties to unite successfully against him, which means that even
we Remainers, in our own way, are partly responsible for the current state of
affairs.
If a group
of Britons can no longer freely stay in Spain and feel they have to leave the
country to avoid being caught up in legal entanglements, the responsibility
lies on Britain and Britain alone. We can’t blame Spain or the EU for not
unlocking the cage we’ve built for ourselves.
Meritocracy,
touted as an age-old British value, is founded upon the principle of giving to
each what they deserve. As someone who campaigned passionately against Brexit,
I am keenly aware of just how many didn’t ask for us to go down this path. And
– regardless of political views – I feel sympathy for any Briton caught in a
difficult situation abroad.
Nevertheless,
in life, we sometimes make choices we regret, or have to endure those made by
others against our will. It’s time that, as a country, we collectively own up
to a decision made five years ago and accept its consequences – warts and all.
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