“I don’t want to go back with nothing’: the Brexit threat to Spain’s little Britain”

Is the referendum nothing more than an ‘academic process?’

Is it all just scaremongering? There does seem to be a lot of it about lately, therefore an open mind is needed, and further research on your own behalf. What do we believe, what don’t we? Either way, there is more and more publicity on the ‘fear based’ side of things in my opinion. That’s just my opinion! Everyone has an opinion, as they should – but keeping an open mind is key, and your own experience may not even correspond with the experience of the next person.

It’s always good to keep an eye on matters that “matter” however I find that as a keen ‘observer’ rather than a participator, things are not always as they seem.

An Article from the Guardian:

The newcomers have got the hang of one Spanish cliche all right: mañana. But now their situation is starting to hit home – not because Spain does not want them, but because their compatriots could make their situation untenable. The referendum is creating great concern, some alarm, and in one or two cases near-panic. If Britain votes to leave, these Britons will very likely have to leave too, physically as well as politically. If Orihuela Costa were in the UK, its demographics – elderly, white, C1/C2s with a taste for bowls and golf – would make it a prime target for Ukip. Here the thinking is spectacularly different.

Donnelly, now 76, came out here as a 48-year-old after working as a refrigeration engineer. (“It wasn’t the cold in the fridges I minded, it was the cold outside.”) Fluent in Spanish, he is appalled by the prevailing expat indifference: “It’s abysmal. I cannot get anybody to assist me on committees where we have to deal with the authorities and speak Spanish.” But why bother? The locals make the effort instead.

“I had a blackout on my scooter and woke up in a ditch,” said the bowls club president, Tony Capewell, from West Bromwich. “I thought they’d just patch me up. They kept me in hospital for a week doing tests. They were brilliant.” Allen Bowen from Wales was even more fulsome. He has had multiple health issues lately. “Everyone gets a private room. The doctors are wonderful, and they all speak English. Plus the food’s very nice. I even go in to the cafe to eat if I’m nearby. They talk about Syrians, but if Britain comes out of Europe they’ll have about two million pensioners coming back demanding to go on the NHS. But it won’t be as good.”

Read the FULL article from the Guardian

 

 

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