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OPINION: BREXIT

BREXIT

Why this Spaniard wants Britain to stay in the EU

Spanish author Alberto Letona tells The Local why Britons would be denying their entire history if they voted for Brexit.

In July 1973 as a young student, I left my country, Spain, and came to the UK. I was hoping to learn English and to get a menial job to help me get by financially. The UK had been a member of the European Union for a mere six months.

It was a sharp contrast with my country, still constrained under an ugly dictatorship. I arrived at Gatwick airport, where everything seemed spotless and efficient. I stayed in a miniscule apartment in London for two months, while working as a kitchen porter in a pub near Oxford Street. During that time I breathed freedom in all senses. I was enchanted, not only with London´s diversity, but also with the spirit of the country. I had already decided that one day I would be back again.

Years later I came back as a Basque language lecturer at St Andrews University, where I taught for two years. These were changing times. Margaret Thatcher was now in office and lots of things, from education to politics, had shifted drastically. In my view the UK had lost a bit of the humanism that I had loved so much in favour of a cold-hearted pragmatism. At St Andrews I made good friends, and most importantly I met my future wife, Kate. So I knew that I would come back yet again.

And yes, though we decided to settle down near Bilbao in the Basque Country, we have been coming back regularly to the UK under any excuse for almost 30 years. Beautiful Devon and busy London, where I completed a masters degree in International Journalism, have been our main bases. I have travelled quite widely around the world, but I can honestly say that the UK is my second home in emotional terms, as it is for our daughter and son.


Britons will vote in the EU referendum on June 23rd. Photo: futureatlas.com/flickr

Over all these years I have witnessed a lot of changes in the UK, not all of them for the better. I have followed the political and social life of the country quite closely, and worked frequently for its media. I have even dared to write a book about the UK and its citizens, including my judgments and affection too.

The British, unlike the Spaniards, are very good at bashing their own country, but like everybody else they don’t like it when criticism comes from foreigners. They might be a bit cynical, but they don’t get carried away by the words of lunatic politicians promising eternal happiness to everyone. Individualist as they are, they have kept a sense of community that some more gregarious societies would very much envy. They don’t jump the queue as many of my fellow countrymen do. Respect is a meaningful word.

I fully understand that you have to be ready to integrate into the country you live in. You should learn their language, because otherwise you will miss all kinds of opportunities, not only materialistic ones. These things are only logical and a sign of respect for the country you are in.

Equally some British people should understand that “Rule Britannia” doesn’t apply any longer, and that the “dark satanic mills” in Jerusalem form part of a global reality.

Immigration is a big issue nowadays. Fear of other cultures is quite natural, but I can’t help but smile when some people in Britain talk about “invasions” without realizing the amount of British nationals living in other places, not least in Spain. One of the greatest successes of the British is that they have always turned immigrants into their own. Italian and Irish immigrants, French Huguenots, Jews, Russian refugees and Commonwealth citizens are all an example. I believe that in many cases their contribution to their new country has been enormous.

I don’t want the UK to lose its personality, pragmatism, sense of humour, eccentricity, or its fish and chips. There are lots of things, I’m sure, that other Europeans admire and value about the British. Nobody should be interested in wiping out the character of a nation (Scottish and Welsh included) which has produced so many influential artists, scientists, explorers, writers, and thinkers.

I believe that if the UK’s citizens vote in favour of leaving the EU, they will be denying their own history of integrating different races and cultures, and the values which many generations have held as part of their Britishness.

I would certainly be very sorry and disappointed.

Alberto Letona is a Basque journalist living in Bilbao. He is the author of Hijos e Hijas de la Gran Bretaña –Sons and Daughters of Great Britain – in which he delves into the psyche of the British in an attempt to explain them to his own countrymen. 

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GIBRALTAR

UK soldiers expelled from Spain after crossing from Gibraltar posing as tourists

Spain has expelled four Royal Navy servicemen who crossed the Spain-Gibraltar border on foot three times in a single day while dressed in civilian clothing, with Spanish media claiming they were checking the porosity of the border.

UK soldiers expelled from Spain after crossing from Gibraltar posing as tourists

Spanish police expelled four British soldiers from Spain on Monday night, removing them from the country and sending them back to Gibraltar after it emerged that the four Royal Navy personnel had entered Spain illegally while “posing as tourists”, as the Spanish press has reported.

The incident comes a week after the British Navy carried out military drills in the waters surrounding Gibraltar, the British overseas territory that Spain still claims sovereignty of, and amid the seemingly never-ending negotiations between Spain and the UK to finally settle a post-Brexit deal.

READ ALSO: Gibraltar Brexit deal ‘close’ as Brits crossing into Spain use fake bookings

The expulsions, now reported in the Spanish press by Europa Sur and confirmed to El Periódico de España by official sources, occurred after the four soldiers arrived in Gibraltar on a civilian flight and entered into Spain. They also had return tickets via Gibraltar.

They then reportedly passed themselves off as tourists and entered Spain on foot, staying at a four-star hotel in La Línea de la Concepción, the town in the Cádiz province of Andalusia that borders Gibraltar.

Stranger yet is that they crossed the border at La Línea on up to three occasions in the space of a few hours.

READ ALSO: What Brits need to know before crossing the border from Gibraltar to Spain

Spanish authorities detected their presence because two of the soldiers tried to return to Gibraltar at night.

At the border, Spanish police officers enquired as to the reason for their entry, to which the soldiers replied that they were on their way to work and brandished British military documentation.

The police decided that their entry into Spain had been irregular because they did not meet the Schengen Borders Code requirements demanded of non-EU citizens entering EU territory.

According to Europa Sur, Spanish police then asked the two soldiers to call their colleagues in the hotel in order to collect their luggage and return to Gibraltar, which took place at midnight on Monday 18th March.

The Spanish press has stated that it is common for soldiers to try to stay in Spanish territory by concealing their military status and entering while posing as tourists.

The motive for the soldiers’ presence, particularly their repeated trips across the border, remains unknown.

The military drills in the area seem to suggest that the soldiers may have taken part in or be due to take part in further exercises and wanted to enter as tourists.

Spanish media also suggests that they could have been testing the porosity of the border, though these claims remain unsubstantiated.

Gibraltar’s post-Brexit status still remains unresolved. The EU and UK government are now onto their 18th round of treaty negotiations after the framework agreement between London and Madrid made on New Year’s Eve 2020 essentially ‘fudged’ the border issue, leaving Gibraltar’s status within the Schengen area undefined.

Spain’s Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said in late-2023 that “we are very, very close” to finalising a Brexit agreement.

“I would sign a deal with Britain over Gibraltar tomorrow,” Albares told journalists at the time. Yet no agreement was made, despite the Minister’s positivity, nor the appointment of former UK Prime Minister David Cameron as Foreign Secretary.

Albares’ comments came at a time when it was reported in the Spanish press that many UK nationals have been using fake hotel bookings in order to try and bypass the Schengen rules and trick their way through border checks.

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