Report on British residents in Alicante and Brexit
March and April 2019 Jeremy MacClancy carried out research, funded by Oxford Brookes, into the attitudes towards Brexit held by British residents in Alicante. He managed to interview 28 Brits, both Remainers and Leavers.
May that year he returned to Alicante and gave a public talk on his results. His interviewees, local academics and students, journalists, and representatives of the British Consulate, Alicante were all invited. About 30 people attended; about 12 of them were Jeremy's interviewees.
It was particularly valuable for him to receive comments on the report by the interviewees: as much as possible, Jeremy wanted the work to be collaborative, and for those who participated in the research to be able to remark on it, and prevent what they might have regarded as misrepresentations. Jeremy is pleased to say that the interviewees who attended were generally supportive of the report and only suggested minor changes.
After the public talk, Jeremy, held a lunch in the restaurant of the University of Alicante for the attending interviewees, and two social scientists from UA. This was an excellent opportunity for Jeremy to receive any, more informal comments on his work.
Afterwards, he disseminated his report to the British Consulate, and to Costa Blanca News and Informacion, the main provincial Alicantine newspaper. The Vice-Consul, Sara Munsterhjelm, replied that the report had been 'interesting and engaging': the section of the report on the reasons why some British residents do not register in the municipality where they live was of 'use as it backs up what we already believe to be true, which is that tax is the main deciding factor'. Summarising, she said the report provided 'useful background information and backs up our understanding of the way British nationals behave'.
Jeremy and Fiona are now writing up their material on British residents in Alicante and southwest France as a comparative analysis, to be published as a book late 2020. Both remain very grateful for all the support they have received from their interviewees and grant-givers.
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The report:
Past perfect, present
tense, future conditional?
Brexit and British
residents in Spain
Jeremy MacClancy
April 2019
March-April
2019 I spent in Alicante province, SE Spain, interviewing 28 long-term
residents from the British Isles. This is the latest stage in my continuing
research into the political beliefs and behaviour of British residents in the
area. I work in liaison with Fiona Ferbrache, a rural geographer at Oxford
University, who carries out similar research in rural southwestern France. Ferbrache
and I have studied the political activity of British residents on
town-councils, and in anti-Brexit campaign groups, both on- and offline. Neither
of us had yet studied the positions held by British residents in general
towards Brexit, both at the time of the referendum and today. This report is an
attempt to plug that gap. Ferbrache and I plan to produce a comparative
Hispano-French analysis of the political behaviour of Britons in both
countries, to be published as a short book next year.
Method among the madness
I strove to
contact as many British residents as possible, and so tried all the channels I
could think of.
Costa Blanca News kindly agreed to include an
informative paragraph by me stating my aims and requesting interviewees. This
led to a few interviews. Since I’ve had a rural retreat in the interior of the province
for the last 15 years, I spoke to English-speaking friends I already have in
the area. They all agreed to be interviewed. One friend teaches yoga, whose
classes I attend: this led to some interviews. In a nearby housing estate,
dominated by Britons and north Europeans, I put up posters in both its bars and
joined the Facebook discussion group for English-speakers, where I also posted
my plea: its coordinator and spouse agreed to my interview, but no one else. One
friend suggested I contact a resident who acted as a block-email disseminator
to several hundred residents in southern Alicante and Murcia. This led to over
a dozen interviews. The British Vice-Consul emailed for me a local contact who
had access to Britons living in Benidorm caravan parks. I did not subsequently
hear from the contact. I toured all the caravan and camping sites I could find
in Benidorm (seven) and in Villajoyosa (three), having posters about my work
put up. This led to no responses. A town-councillor whose portfolio included
liaising with British residents block-emailed them on my behalf. I have so far received
no replies.
The sum result was that I spoke with six couples, one couple
with their adult son, and thirteen other residents. One interviewee, a British
citizen, was born in France but brought up in the UK from an early age. One
couple were Irish but were strongly recommended to me because the wife was
well-known in their area as the energetic organiser of events bringing together
foreign residents and local natives. Geographically all bar one lived in the
Alicantine interior; several had initially resided on the coast, but moved
inland because of the number of tourists and many things which came in their
train: higher prices, rowdiness, drunkenness, drugs, etc. All interviewees, bar the adult son in his
early twenties, were in their late forties or above; three were in their late
seventies. The British press often portray compatriots in Spain as almost
exclusively elderly retirees who do not work, with a sprinkling of adult
offspring who serve drinks in bars: for instance, the 2018 Guardian video-newsclip about those in Orihuela Costa, a very large
estate in southern Alicante. This representation is more caricature than
portrait. Among those I interviewed, about a third were employed; another third
(of whatever age) worked part-time; the others were full-time retired.
I accept that my range of interviewees is limited in
demographic, geographic, and occupational terms. All, bar one, were at least
middle-aged, and lived inland, in their own houses, not in blocks of flats. Their
past occupations in the UK were diverse: from director of a conglomerate to
teacher of English, from insurance broker to petrol tank driver. But none had
held unskilled positions in the UK, nor did any hold them in Spain.
I also worked my way through all the conversational threads
on Brexit in the Facebook group I joined. All personal names and place-names
are pseudonyms.
Why ‘Bye-bye Blighty’? Why Spain? Why
this province?
Most stated
they left Britain because they disliked its contemporary development. ‘By the
time I left, England was not the country I was born in, brought up in, or
worked in’, said one. Specific reasons included: a retired couple spoke of a
growing sense of hostility in urban centres; a homeowner, who had been taunted
by teenage neighbours, protested the law sided with burglars; a pair of
ex-teachers had perceived a narrowing of educational vision, with too much
emphasis on exams; the former owner of a high-street business complained about
the increasing length of red-tape. Several wondered if they would now fit in,
should they have to go back. I was told of one couple who did return because of
ill-health, but came back after two years, as they’d disliked contemporary
Britain so much. In other words, almost all interviewees expressed dissatisfaction
to some degree with the UK; as a place to live, Spain seemed a better bet.
Most said they had come to Spain
because the climate was milder and usually warmer; the country was only a short
plane-flight away from Britain, enabling easy return if need be; and—crucially
important for those surviving on their pensions and/or part-time jobs--a better
standard of living was possible as the cost of living was lower compared to the
UK. Their days were more tranquil, and they had a better social life. As one
female entrepreneur, who had felt overburdened by British business bureaucracy,
said to me, ‘What’s the point of having kids if you can’t spend time with
them?’
Several underlined their love of
Spain as a major reason for immigration. They praised as highly as they could various
aspects: Spanish culture, its literature, music and art, its way of life, its
sense of family, community, religion, its food, its landscape, the light late
in the day. Spaniards were thought nicer, friendlier than, for example, French or
Italians. One, an interior designer, said, ‘I feel a real affinity with the
Spanish people, their mañana mentality, with everything about
the country.’ One artist, bored with ‘90s London, was attracted by the slightly
anarchistic feel, the rawness he thought Madrid had at the time. Francis Bacon,
in a chat at the Colony Club, Soho, had persuaded him that the capital ‘was
more 24 hours than New York’, as he later found.
All interviewees, bar one, lived
away from the coast. They chose the province because the Costa Brava (north of
Barcelona) and the Costa del Sol (centred around Malaga and Marbella) were too
expensive, and too noisy. Several at first lived on the Alicantine coast but
moved inland after some months or a few years: they found the littoral towns
too full of tourists; it was too easy to spend one’s time exclusively with
other Brits, and very easy to drink too much. There were too many drugs, and
burglaries. The beauty of the piedmontese landscape appealed to many; one said
he had chosen the Alicantine interior as a WHO study claimed it was the best
place for human habitation thanks to its climate, air quality, and altitude. Most
lived in detached houses near a town, some on estates, and a few were off-grid
in the countryside. All resided within a half-hour drive from an international
airport.
The great majority appeared satisfied with the fullness of
their lifestyles: socialising, physical activities (walking, walking the dogs, gardening,
exercise classes, swimming, cycling, etc.), and organising or participating in communal
events, e.g. organised walks and picnics, low-intensity sports (petanque,
darts, pool), ‘Moors and Christians’ fiestas, choral singing, amateur
dramatics, a Facebook discussion group, an annual village panto, in English. As
one said, ‘We get involved in any village activity we can’. Many owned dogs,
chosen from the municipal pound; a good number of them volunteer in the
shelters or promote canine charities. Cheap but good restaurants meant many can
afford to lunch out frequently, which they couldn’t in the UK. A few noted
their collective presence maintained or boosted commercial activity in the area:
one had set up a beauty salon, another a gym; several worked as teachers of
English, and some individuals as masseur, personal trainer, athletics coach,
yoga teacher, travel-writer, sculptor, arts therapist. One had made month-long
stints in the UK as a live-in carer, and knew of at least five women in her
town doing the same. Some expressed pride that their children had helped keep
local schools open. In one town, several mentioned to me a charity shop, run by
a Briton, whose profits funded the panto and kept seven local, Spanish families
out of extreme poverty.
In sum, all were well aware they
enjoyed a better standard of life in Spain. Most could afford a bigger house
than they could have had in the UK; the others could not have bought a house at
all in Britain. Food, medicines and many utilities were cheaper, municipal
taxes lower; there were more hours of sun, and speedier access to health
services, of very good quality. Most were socially active and, indirectly or
directly, contributed to local services. No one expressed regret at coming to
Spain. I interviewed a self-confessed quasi-hermit who lived an unhealthy existence
in idiosyncratic conditions, and another resident, approaching their eighties,
who was bed-ridden at the time: neither wished to go back. Their home was Spain
and they did not lament that.
Brexit: opposed logics
All
interviewees had a clear opinion about Brexit. No one was undecided. All were
either Leavers or Remainers, and almost all of them stressed they held to their
position without any qualifications whatsoever. Of the 26 Britons interviewed,
20 voted for or supported Remain, 6 were for Leave.
The reasons Remainers gave for voting Remain may be grouped
as (a) familial, (b) international trade, (c) belief in larger units, (d)
belief in the EU as a beneficial organisation to be a member of, (e) identity.
Familial: several said they voted Remain,
because they thought of their adult children in the UK and their future prospects,
especially offspring who ran their own businesses. They judged Brexit would
endanger their profitability, and maybe their survival.
Trade: several worried about the effect of Brexit on commerce.
One argued that so much trade today was international, but one couldn’t think
that the pattern of British trade after leaving the EU would be similar to that
previous to entering it. Workers would lose out: ‘They’re unaware of what’ll
hit them’. A former accountant said she was concerned about the size of the UK
as a commercial unit. ‘If the EU was a company, England would be just a
subsidiary, with nothing to gain by leaving; only by staying and trying to
change it.’ Post-Brexit, companies would move away, saying, ‘What the hell am I
doing in this little country not backed by the EU?’
Belief in larger units: worries about the comparative size of
the UK went beyond the economic. Several argued that the larger the group, the
better. There was greater chance of successful defence of group interests, and representativeness. One couple stated it was good
having lots of people behind the creation of regulation: ‘The wider you go the
more representative you can be.’ Several linked belief in bigger units with
conviviality, underpinning that link by the general aim of moving towards a
greater, more harmonious whole. ‘We ought to work towards a world where we all
work together. With more tolerance and greater understanding.’
Belief in the EU as a beneficial
organisation to be a member of: if one follows the logic that the success of larger units is
grounded on the laudable goals of conviviality and harmony, then Britain needs
the EU more than the Union needed the UK:
‘It’s time for Britain to remain a member of the community it
has chosen to be with. I don’t think you can go it alone today. Britain needs
to broaden its vision. . .It needs to accept other cultures. . .It’s good that Britain
becomes more multicultural. . . Changes in London over the last sixty years are
for the better; it’s more cosmopolitan today. This is good as Britain is less
of a world power, and can accept others’
For several, conviviality and harmony in broader units,
multicultural ones, dovetailed with mobility for all across the Union: being
able to decide where to live in Europe was ‘a more exciting possibility’ than having
to remain in one country. All interviewees were by definition migrants, and
some saw the flipside to British emigration—immigration into the UK—as an
economic benefit of being in the EU: ‘the infrastructure, the grants, the
agriculture, the jobs the English don’t want to do. How is the NHS going to
survive?’ Harmonious conviviality and general mobility, whether of emigration
or immigration, fed off one another: thanks to the new freedom for EU members
to wander around its territory, ‘people were gelling’. Enabling easy movement
between countries both demonstrated and served as a reminder that ‘This world
belongs to us all.’
Any large organisation has its downsides. Four interviewees
acknowledged the EU did not work perfectly, and two of them admitted they
supported Remain, purely for reasons of self-interest: for one, the EU was
‘making so much out of England’; another worried about the power of lobbies. But
none of them saw imperfection as a reason for exit, rather for internal reform.
Moreover, remaining in the EU was a powerful guarantee for peace, which had
been maintained since WWII, the longest period without war on the Continent in
centuries. In sum, as one put it, it was ‘much more healthy to be part of
Europe’. In the words of another, the EU functioned well: ‘Why spoil something
when it’s working?’
Identity: all interviewees identified as British. But
several expressed that was not their exclusive, nor predominant mode of
identification. They said they were not British and nothing but British. One
had ‘always felt more European than British, which had past its days of glory’.
Another had always seen herself as European rather than British. Her parents
had been active in the twin-towns initiatives, so had toured much of the
Continent as a child. She now classed herself ‘a citizen of the world’. For
some Remainers, the result of the referendum and the subsequent debate
shattered core beliefs about their home country, exposing them as illusions. ‘I
thought I knew what England was about. Now I don’t’. ‘Please stop it. It’s
breaking my heart.’
The reasons Leavers gave for voting Leave may be grouped, in
a strikingly similar fashion, as (a) trade, (b) belief in smaller units, (c)
belief in the EU as a damaging organisation to be a member of, (d) identity.
Trade: two said the British economy would
not crash. They acknowledged ‘bumps’ in the first EU-free years, but affirmed
the country’s economy would emerge as strong as ever. The war years had
demonstrated the English were ‘very good at austerity’. The City of London
would continue to be a European centre of finance because it was too
well-established. After all, England had been trading for a thousand years
before joining the EU. One admitted membership of the EU did benefit trade,
‘but they’ll be there anyway’.
Belief in smaller units: one said he always believed in running
one’s own show, whether it be household or country. Charity began at home, he
stated, before damning Cameron’s ring-fencing of British international aid. This
inward-facing dovetailed with another’s view that England had done ‘too much
for people coming into the country’, over-generosity leading to an overburdened
NHS. One Leaver used the village he lived in to argue this upholding of lesser
groups:
Pueblo del Moro wants to be Pueblo del Moro. Its people want
to retain autonomy. They don’t need anyone else. Without identity they’re
awash, they’re nothing. The EU brings a conformity they don’t embrace,
attitudes they don’t follow.
On this
logic, expanding the Union, another contended, towards the East was mistaken:
‘Their customs and traditions didn’t mix with the EU. Though the EU was trying
to make it happen, they couldn’t.’
Belief in the EU as a damaging
organisation to be a member of: for Leavers the EU had become a corrupt operation of
unelected but powerful bureaucrats who wasted money yet never got their
accounts signed off. Freedom of movement was a fine principle, but not if it let
refugees in, or allowed ‘terrorists and Islamic fundamentalists’ to travel
without hindrance. In the pithy phrase of one, the Union was by now ‘the
longest exercise in collective stupidity’.
Identity: A former soldier turned successful
businessman said he, his father, grandfather and other family members had all
fought for their country. To him, sovereignty was sacrosanct, his number one,
but it’d now gone. Millions had fought and died for British sovereignty; but,
as two Leavers stressed, Britons were not federalists.
Brexit: the result, and the resulting
cross-fire
For some
Remainers, the very idea of a referendum was a mistake. One ‘thought it was a
joke. The Government should sort it out amongst themselves.’ Another was
‘shocked and appalled it was even being considered’. But the effect of the
referendum result was even greater, for many. They expressed their reaction as
radical ‘disbelief’, ‘stunned’, ‘absolutely dumbfounded’, ‘shocked’, ‘bloody
silly’, ‘mesmerised’, and so on. Several stated they felt sick, cried, or burst
into tears. One Leaver perceived the day differently: ‘Almost everyone shocked.
But many of them said, “Good!”’
It is easy to exaggerate. It makes for a neater, more
dramatic picture. For not all were so emotionally struck by the vote. Some had
a much more distanced view: ‘It was a bit of a surprise. . . Some people got
very anxiously excited.’ For one townsdweller, ‘There was a lot of shock, but
not much reaction. The pueblo was tranquilo.’
Several said they’d been surprised by the way some friends
had voted. They quickly learnt to keep their opinions to themselves, for at
least a year after the referendum. One Remainer learnt he ‘had to avoid the
subject’, in case he was talking with a ‘rabid Brexiteer’. Another stated people
did not mention it in discussions. They didn’t ‘wish to make a big thing out of
it’. A third said of his local acquaintance, ‘The English people I know here
don’t discuss Brexit much at all.’ But discussions were rekindled once scare
stories started to appear in the press: what would happen to their pensions,
their access to healthcare; would they need to obtain a residence permit, a
Spanish driving licence?
We should expect those
on either side of the Brexit divide to exaggerate or lampoon the attitudes of
the other side. This is common in meetings between people with very different
visions of the world (Boon 1983). Here, the relevant question is in what terms
they characterise those in the opposite corner. In interviews, Remainers
crabbed, in particular, Leavers’ view of history, their idea of Great Britain,
and the sources of their views, while Leavers criticised Remainers, above all, as
ill-informed.
Some Remainers criticised some Leavers as people who ‘still
think we have loads of gunboats; some in their 80s are thinking in terms of the
past century.’ These Remainers saw Leavers’ view of Brexit as a ‘retrogressive
step, going back to a time no longer existing’. Moreover, as one underlined, Leavers’
historical memory was very selective: ‘Leavers have forgotten the state of
England at the time of entry to the EU’: the 3-day week, devaluation only a few
years before, the UK was ‘the poor man of Europe’. One summed up Leavers’
attitudes as ‘Britain’s best, no matter what happens.’ Several Remainers pinned
their hopes on the younger generation, for whom the Second World War was
unlived history.
Several were unhappy by Leavers’ lack of consideration for national
diversity, both ethnic and geographic. In their opinion, Brexit had given not
just the far right, but a broader swathe of people permission to air ‘xenophobic
nastiness.’ Some confessed to being ‘very upset by the racial hatred Brexit has
excited’. Two interviewees also referred to the effect of Brexit on sub-units
of the country. Both spoke of Northern Ireland: ‘What really galls me is the
total disregard for the. . .border. . .A hard border again: it doesn’t bear
thinking about.’ One pointed out that Leavers made no mention of Scots’ views.
Many Remainers saw themselves as informed, and Leavers as
ignorant. One complained about a couple of in-laws who had voted Leave because
of two television programmes they’d watched: ‘They’d not thought further than
their nose. “Rule Britain” shit,’ which at root she suspected racist. Another
said Leavers talked about regaining sovereignty, but did not provide the
evidence. Informed Leavers were crabbed
as not thinking the issues through: to some Remainers, Leavers had not
considered what life would be like for their grandchildren; also, they failed
to value easy movement within Europe. On listening to one Leaver couple, one Remainer
despaired, ‘Why are you here? Why not go back to England?’
Some interviewees made the more
general, less caustic point that people, of whatever stripe, were more ignorant
at the time of the referendum. ‘No one knew what would happen.’ They blamed the
government for lack of voter education. Of course the underlying implication
for Remainers of the economic forecasting studies produced since the referendum
is that Leavers, not Remainers, would change their minds. I found no evidence
of this.
Some Leavers were similarly critical of ‘Remoaners’. One
declared that the only reason some residents had opted for Remain was that they
were frightened. But, as another put it, worry about losing pensions and
healthcare cover was ‘arrogant nonsense’ fanned by ‘fear-mongers’: the Spanish
Government did not want to lose a significant sub-population which maintained
so many local jobs. ‘Brexit bad for the economy? That was said by people who
didn’t understand economics.’
Several Remainers aimed their ire,
not at Leavers, but at government, Leave campaign leaders, and the newspapers.
These critics blamed a generation of governing parties, of whatever colour, for
using the EU as a scapegoat. Whenever a political decision was unliked, they
said, politicians blamed it on EU regulations, if they could. In Spain when a
construction or road-building project was part-funded by the EU, that fact was
displayed boldly on large billboards: in the UK, the same sign would make no
reference to the Union. And, for these Remainers, this sustained sidelining or
damning of the EU prevented pro-Remain politicians from praising the Union for
the ways its work had benefited Britain. Some stressed the manipulative, lying
style of Leave politicians: the result was ‘the knee-jerk reaction of voters
pushed by people with their own agendas, thinking of their own pockets.’ Many
also blamed the press, especially the tabloids. One, who lived on the coast, singled
out the very anti-Brexit position adopted by the Daily Mail while under the editorship of Paul Dacre. They then
pointed out to me how easily it outsold all other British newspapers in his
littoral area. One interviewee expressed their surprise to me: they ‘could not imagine English people could
be so stupid, or easily manipulated’.
In these atmosphere of mutual
recrimination, how did those couples whose partners voted in opposite ways
cope? One Leaver said ‘It’s not a great discussion point. I just don’t watch
the news anymore.’ Another, whose live-in child and their spouse were
Remainers, stated, ‘They don’t talk about it.’ One stressed it was important to
place the topic within broader contexts, to downplay the matter. In the words
of one spouse, ‘Jeremy! There’s wine
to drink! Coffee to be had! Life to be lived!’
If, in social encounters, partisans of both sides choose to
stay mum on the topic unless with known co-believers, it’s on the web that the vitriol
can become plainer. In the mildly regulated environment of the Internet, where
interaction is still speedy, but not face to face, some residents choose to
state bluntly what they feel about supporters of the opposite party. Several
residents said to me they had, by mistake, joined a discussion group supporting
the opposed side to them. The number of abusive posts they soon received was so
great they quickly left: ‘I was getting endless emails calling me “Thick” and
stuff like that.’ The coordinator for the Facebook group I joined said the volume
of posts about Brexit became so large, and the tone of many so charged, that
she felt obliged to siphon off the topic into a separate sub-group. In this
e-forum, people appeared to speak more freely than my interviewees had done. Some
Leavers openly criticised the number of immigrants--‘changing the genetic make
up of the UK for ever’ (in a UKIP Warwick poster put up by a Leaver)-- and
their supposed ability to claim benefits. They also questioned the democratic
nature of a second referendum: ‘You can’t move the goalposts just cos you lost.
Suck it buttercup.’ In response, Remainers stated Leavers did not distinguish
between asylum seekers and migrants, whether legal or illegal. One lamented
that he had ‘found out that a lot of people in the UK are racist, which is a
shame’. Some stressed the age profile, and thus claimed lack of
representativeness, of Leavers, ‘foaming through their clenched dentures’. They
also repeatedly queried what kind of United Kingdom Leavers wanted, given their
lack of concern for the future of Northern Ireland and Scotland, as though they
were true ‘Little Englanders’, as that would be about all they would be left
with: ‘And they have the cheek to call Remainers “traitors”’.
Leavers and Remainers were at least on the same Facebook
page: they did hold some things in common: upholders of either side claimed
those of the other used ‘lies’ to make their case. Some also branded their
opponents as ‘ignorant’, substituting ‘derisory drivel’ for factual evidence.
Both accused the other of unreality: ‘the mentality of the Brexiters is beyond
reason’; guilty of a ‘mass delusion’, they ‘voted for a mythical creature—the
unicorn’ and acted like latter-day Flat Earthers. One Leaver accused a fervent
Dutch Remainer of not being fully conscious: ‘Yaaawwwwwwn, Dirk, wake up and
smell the coffee.’ And again, there was the occasional desire to retain
balance. When one Leaver openly despaired at the continuing negotiations, a
Remainer neighbour posted, ‘Don’t let it get you down. . .Do what I’ve done
tonight, I’ve barbecued, had a good bottle of wine all for under £10. Forget
Brexit for a few hours and remember the good days.’
Brexit: the future
No
interviewee, whether Leaver or Remainer, said that Brexit had changed their
minds about going back. None on either side expressed any desire to leave
Spain. Some were adamant: ‘This is my home.’ ‘Nothing would make me go back to
England. I feel comfortable and at home here. There are no instances under
which I’d go back’. One had turned down an offer from his sibling to join him
in Kuala Lumpur: ‘I would not be better off living anywhere else.’ Another gave
a more individual response, ‘Yes, stay 100%, because I want to marry a Spaniard.’
Indeed, many stated Brexit had only reinforced their
determination to stay put. Some Remainers argued against return because,
‘’Brexit has so polarised the population’, as well as increasing levels of
racism and bigotry, along with a notable decline in compassion. ‘Why go back?
There’s so much hatred, pollution, and crappy weather.’ A few said that, if forced to leave, instead
of returning to the UK, they would move to another warm, cheap country:
Thailand, the Philippines, for instance. They had realised the benefits of
cheap living in sunny climes and were not going to surrender those easily. They
would rather become serial transnationals than reluctant returnees.
The only reasons, people stated, which would oblige them to
return to the UK were all financial: if their pensions were frozen or stopped;
if they lost free access to healthcare services, or had to make hefty monthly
payments for them to the state, with the cost of prescriptions on top of that;
if the exchange rate fell to low. If necessary, many stated, they were ready to
forfeit British nationality for the sake of gaining Spanish residence. ‘We’ll
do whatever it takes’, said one couple, in uncharacteristic unity. Only one
interviewee bluntly affirmed they would never consider it.
Brexit: what chance of a dialogue?
In an
attempt to summarise, without over-generalising too much, we could say that Remainers
had an expansive, forward-facing vision of the world, one whose populations
were or should be members of the largest groups possible. Members of these
groups would strive to embody a pervasive conviviality and harmony. The EU (the
group including the English) would be structured by a creative multiculturalism
within an ambience of productive tolerance. Further, Remainers recognised they
were British, but this was neither their sole nor most significant mode of
identification.
In sharp contrast, Leavers saw themselves as upholders of
representative democracy framed by a relatively small, once homogenous unit
with a strong economy. Its continued existence was partly justified by those
who had died for it. To a significant extent, their vision was inwardly focused
and retrospective, of a stable society whose members could recognise one
another as fellow nationals in a relatively unproblematic manner, and who had
all contributed equally to the commonwealth, according to their means. For
Leavers, being British was by far the most important group identity they
upheld, beyond that of their individual families.
If we compare the two groups, members of each uphold a
certain vision of the world, as it is or should be. Both visions are undergirt
by abstract conceptions and principles, but by different ones: expansiveness
vs. centripetality, multiculturalism vs. cultural coherence, forward-looking
vs. historically grounded, unrestricted mobility vs. relative stability,
globally-oriented vs. Anglocentricity.
Members of both sides were united in the centrality of the
Brexit process, though they evaluated it in opposed manners. They implicitly
agreed that this debate was one worth arguing, that it was an opportunity to
stake out one’s principles. Leavers and Remainers were also united in their
condemnation of the parliamentary proceedings over Brexit. Leavers appeared
particularly disappointed: ‘Why this dealing? I thought we just wanted to
leave. Negotiations to try to get a good deal? Bit of a cheek, I thought.’
Some, on either side, thought the Brexit debate so complex, so detailed that it
was unsuited for a referendum. A national question this convoluted was best
worked through by those employed full-time to consider them. Hence their particularly
embittered disappointment MPs appeared to be more concerned with infighting and
scoring points than resolving the key issues.
Within both camps, some grounded their views on the fact
Britain was an island. The geographic metaphor was common, but those on each
side worked it in their own way. Some Remainers saw this positively, e.g., ‘We
are always English. We have always had sovereignty. We are an island, therefore
difficult to take over, so it can’t be more over-run by migrants.’ Others saw
it negatively: ‘Britain is a stupid. . .island out in the Channel: but it needs
Europe to be something, desperately’. One Leaver argued in terms of size:
Britain was too ‘small’ to accommodate further incomers, and therefore should
not be so ‘generous’ to migrants. One Remainer summed up the difference between
sides in islandly terms: Leavers, ‘island mentality’; Remainers, ‘gypsy pirates
mentality’; i.e., nationally fixed vs. transnationals; homebound vs. voyagers;
those who stayed on their ground vs. those open to new winds.
At the same time, geography was a potential cause for
confusion on both sides. Almost all Remainers and Leavers referred in our
discussions to ‘England’, as though it were equivalent to ‘Great Britain’, even
in the midst of this fractious debate about national destination. For them the
regions of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland were not important fractions
of the national whole, whose geographically-framed opinions on Brexit might
well be significantly different. Even a Scots Leaver I spoke with did not
bother to make this distinction, as though the issue overrode important nationalist
aspirations. One interviewee, in her late sixties, argued that this elision of
the two terms was a consequence of their upbringing: it was only in the last
decade, with the ascendancy of Scots nationalism within its homeland, that the
distinction had become important. There was similar confusion with ‘Europe’. As
much a political as a geographical term, Europe is the only continent which is
not a separable landmass: Its eastern border is conventionally taken as the
Ural Mountains, to the east of Moscow. Europe, as well as its mainland, includes
Iceland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the Canaries, an archipelago which is
geologically part of the African continent. The United Kingdom can leave the
European Union by vote; it can only leave Europe by geographical re-definition.
And if that were to be achieved, would it make Iceland and Ireland
non-European?
In the conversational midst of these opposed visions—Leave,
Remain--compounded by cartographic confusion, several did recognise the
difficulty of comprehending their opponents. One Remainer couple felt the
argument on their side was so right, they ‘couldn’t imagine people wouldn’t see
the benefits of being in the EU.’ Other Remainers said to me, ‘You can’t
understand how intelligent people can accept (Leave)’; ‘I can’t believe the
stupidity of Leavers. (The referendum) was really about immigration but know
it’s dodgy to say that.’ Some, mindful of manipulation during the campaign,
branded Leavers as the ‘brainwashed’. But as one insightful Leaver observed,
‘When you ask Remainers, “Why did you vote that way?”, they can’t really tell
you, and it’s the same for Leavers.’ I take her incisive comment to mean that
the arguments from either side were not engaging, but sliding past one another.
For several, whether Leave or Remain, commitment to their position was so firm that
it could blind them to understanding others or that, failing to recognise the
fundamental differences between the two camps, they traded deprecation over the
effects, rather than the root causes of the debate. For though both desire a utopia and view that
of the other side a dystopia, Leavers and Remainers start from different bases
and structure their arguments along different values. Thus, usually, they are
not talking with each other, but at one another. The anti-Brexit campaign
group, Bremain in Spain, found that so many of its members were complaining of
frustrating, inconclusive debates with Leavers that it started holding regional
workshops, to train Remainers in ways to engage productively with their
opponents. According to the group’s website, attendees judged them ‘very useful
and reassuring’.
It is important to remember that Leave/Remain is a
manufactured difference. It is, to a great extent the product of public
disagreements between professional politicians. Several interviewees said they
had been quite happy with the ways things were, until they were given the
choice. I.e. until they were forced to think where they stood on the issue.
None of the interviewees had held public office, nor belonged to a political
party beforehand. One declared he wasn’t ‘political’ before the debate had
started, and had never voted consistently for the same party. In other words,
Brexit had politicised the previously apolitical. One had even emailed several
MPs and the Prime Minister. A life-long Tory, he said he’d never vote
Conservative again.
Politicisation on the issue, however mild or strong, did not
compute into collective action. The great majority of interviewees were
ignorant of the anti-Brexit campaign groups; the rest, bar one, were
knowledgeable of but apathetic towards them.
Only one of the 20 Remainers said they had joined some of these groups:
Remain in the EU; Brexit No Way; Exit from Brexit. And he had only learnt of
them via a spontaneous Facebook search, not from any contact, digital or
physical, with members of any campaign group. Several said individuals had come to give public talks in
a local bar about what Brexit means, but these meetings had had no further
consequence.
To highlight the distinctiveness of the Brexit groupings, I briefly
discuss two related, overlapping
populations among Britons in Spain: the unregistered, and what I call the
‘reinventers’. Foreigners who live in Spain for more than six months a year are
obliged to register their presence with the Policía Nacional,
who grant them residence permits. It is estimated that the number of Britons
living in the country who have not registered is very high: maybe as much as
50%; maybe more. Conversations with friends, acquaintance, and informed others
among the British in Spain led me to believe that these ‘unregistered’ were the
bureaucracy-shy, who had tried to hide from various authorities in the UK and
were doing the same in Spain. I did manage to speak with several
‘unregistered’: all of them stated that they had paid, or did pay their taxes
in the UK, like any other law-abiding British citizen; the reason they did not
register in Spain was not part of a generalised strategy to avoid officials,
but the more specific one of evading those Spanish taxes which are higher than
their UK equivalents. Depending on one’s range of assets and mode of income,
Britons may well pay more to the state than they would back home. According to several,
whether you chose to register ‘depends on your accountant to some degree’. For
instance, inheritance tax is much higher, and the law dictates what percentage
must go to which family members. I spoke with both Leavers and Remainers who
were unregistered: in every case, their rationale was exclusively financial,
and independent of their attitude to Brexit.
Lifestyle migrants, by definition, move for the sake of a
better lifestyle. They wish to change their mode of living, positively. Though
they cannot totally revise their quotidian existence, because the ideal of the improved
life they wish to lead is part of their home context, they are able to make
substantial changes. Many retrain in order to generate an income in their new
place of residence, e.g. becoming a yoga instructor, or teacher of modern
languages, whether English, German, or Spanish; one, who couldn’t speak Spanish
when she arrived, ended up writing a textbook in it for fellow British
incomers. Others, however, went further, in effect reinventing themselves. As
one couple put it, ‘The main reason we’re here in Spain: we’re anonymous, and
can be anybody we want to be.’ Several interviewees mentioned some Britons
turning themselves into builders, painters, plumbers, decorators, or financial
advisers, ‘on the plane over’, ‘all of a sudden’, and the costly mistakes they
had made hiring these self-defining ‘experts’. But if these reinventers had
clear financial motives, those of some others tended towards the fantastic. I
was told of: an ex-corporal, who today speaks as though he had been a field
marshal; a former RAF auxiliary who claims he was a Wing Commander; and a
retired Marine who speaks of his years in the SAS. One interviewee told of a
former acquaintance who broadcast that he had owned a very successful but
somewhat obscure business in the UK; his teenage son later stated his father
had been a warehouse manager for B & Q. Another described a neighbour who claimed
to ‘have done everything’: as a supposed holder of a judo black belt, he said
he’d trained a James Bond actor and Special Services personnel. I could go on
but the point, I think, is made: by shifting residence to another country, with
different climate, language, culture, and system of government, some migrants
gave themselves the opportunity to change, sometimes radically, sometimes
fantastically.
The unregistered keep away from the Policía Nacional for financial reasons, nothing more. They strive
to take full advantage of beneficial disparities between British and Spanish
tax regimes. In contrast, the reinventers are creating a past to suit their
present, a task only limited by their imagination and persuasiveness. Many of
my interviewees, whether Leavers and Remainers, are relatively distinct from
both groups. Like the unregistered, they are concerned with personal budgeting,
but their ultimate aims are politico-moral, not monetary. They are more
interested in grand questions of governance than the minutiae of domestic spreadsheets.
Like the reinventers, they pursue a dream, but of collective destiny, not
individual biography. They put a socially-grounded ethics before
self-aggrandisement. Both the Leavers and Remainers whom I interviewed uphold
principles which cut deep; to them, the reinventers are an amusement on the
side; and for the registered among them, the unregistered are a superficial
fact of daily life. If anything, they are to be mocked for their penny-pinching
evasion of the state, and the precarious situation they now find themselves in:
they ‘wished to hide away; but now are having to do all the things they
avoided’. Their critics, who had long ago bothered to learn to cope with
Spanish bureaucracy, stated, some with satisfaction, that though the
unregistered had been saying since the referendum ‘Nothing’s going to change’,
from January 2019 on they had started to panic, and were now visiting
solicitors for advice. ‘People are running around like blue-arse flies trying
to get up to date.’
For the Leavers and Remainers I interviewed, the unregistered
put money before principles, and judge dedicated reinventers indulgent
make-believers, a cause for a wry smile, little more. But for those engaged
with the pros and cons of Brexit, Britain’s relation with the EU is not for
trivialising; it’s a phenomenon of a different, core order, a moral one.
+
In sum, we
have two temporary groupings, of opposed views of the world, strongly upheld by
people who are politicised but not collectively organised. They are
passionately committed to their particular position, and often derogatory about
those on the opposed side. These are positions so profoundly felt that Leavers,
for instance, are prepared to put their conception of nationhood over economic
concerns; they place their political beliefs and national visions before their
own personal futures. They support Leave though, they fully recognise, it may
well impact on their continued residency in their new home of choice. This can
make it difficult for Remainers to understand them. In Britain, academic
acquaintances and friends of mine have expressed disbelief to me that British
residents of Spain would vote Leave, but that of course is a statement of my
colleagues’ own beliefs. In contrast Remainers are ready to laud
multiculturalism, despite some sociological evidence questioning its claimed
benefits (Putnam 2007; Abascal & Baldassarri 2015). Remainers uphold a
novel system of government, which though still evolving, continues to suffer
from a democratic deficit, and burdens taxpayers with a relatively inefficient,
and therefore costly bureaucracy. Of course Remainers might ask opponents for
an example of a supra-national administration whose efficacy was deemed
near-perfect.
Given their mutually contested approaches to history, we can
state Leavers find hope in the past, Remainers in the future. What chance the
present?
Acknowledgements
Big, big
thanks to all those who agreed to be interviewed, and those who assisted in
finding possible interviewees. I am most grateful for their interest and
patience. Immense gratitude also to Sarah-Jane Morris and Sara Munsterhjelm,
Consul and Vice-Consul, British Consulate, Alicante, who have consistently
supported this continuing research project; and to Oxford Brookes University,
which awarded me a ‘Research Excellence and Impact’ grant to fund this phase of
my work on Brexit.
If you disagree with any opinions expressed here, do not
direct your irritation at either the Consulate or the University, but at their
independently-minded writer: me.
References
Abascal, M.
& Baldassarri, D. 2015 ‘Love they neighbour? Ethnoracial diversity and
trust reexamined’, American journal of
sociology, November, 121(2): 722-82
Boon, James
A. 1983 Other tribes, other scribes.
Symbolic anthropology in the comparative study of cultures, histories,
religions, and texts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Putnam,
Robert 2007 ‘E pluribus unum: diversity
and community in the twenty-first century. The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize
Lecture’, Scandanavian political studies,
June, 30(2): 137-74
