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BREXIT

OPINION: We’ll fight to win back rights for Britons in Spain and we need your support

Michael Harris of EuroCitizens and British in Europe tells The Local how he feels as the Brexit hour approaches and what his group will do for Brits in Spain.

OPINION: We'll fight to win back rights for Britons in Spain and we need your support
Michael Harris of EuroCitizens has campaigned for the continued rights of Europeans. Photo: Eurocitizens

I will be returning, exhausted, on the last train from Madrid to my home up in the Guadarrama mountains.

On Friday evening, EuroCitizens is meeting to discuss the impact of the Withdrawal Agreement on our lives: how it will guarantee some of our rights and how it will take away others.

We will be updating members on Spanish nationality issues and explaining how we are trying to get clarity on Spanish government measures for Britons during the transition period.

READ ALSO: 

As the train halts in neon-lit suburban stations to disgorge late commuters I will be sad as well as tired. Sad to see my country leave the European Union after nearly fifty years.

Sad to witness the rising tide of narrow nationalism, bigotry and intolerance that is swamping Britain and elsewhere.

Sad that five million citizens, Europeans in the UK and Britons in the EU, have had to suffer years of excruciating uncertainty to get to this point.

Sad that 1.2 million people have lost their European citizenship against their will. Sad because thousands of young Britons in the EU will be unable to study or work in another country. Sad that the professional futures of people who I know will be blighted by restrictions on cross-border service provision. Sad about the complete futility of Brexit.

Ten minutes before getting to El Escorial, the shopping centres, serried rows of semis and bleak, empty car parks will stop and the train will traverse meadows and woodland hidden in darkness.

My spirits will rise and I will think of those who I have worked with in the struggle for citizens' rights. My fellow Europeans in Britain who, through the3million campaigning group, have fought so bravely against Theresa May's hostile environment and pressured the UK government to treat EU citizens decently.

I will mull over the previous hectic week at British in Europe, which started early on Sunday morning and still has not finished. Ten people working flat out for ten hours a day without pay: completing reports on the Withdrawal Agreement, preparing a crucial lobbying trip to Brussels, meeting officials and politicians, catching early-morning buses and late-night flights, sending out newsletters, posting online, finalising budgets and coordinating grassroots groups.

When we finally roll into the station it might be too late to raise a commiserating glass. But I will have done that a couple of hours earlier in the company of my friends and colleagues in EuroCitizens.

I will remember that the best, perhaps the only, way of facing disappointment and adversity is with other people. I ask you to do the same, to support British in Europe over the coming months, to help us ensure that Britons are treated fairly by EU member states, that our rights are fully respected and that we claw back some of the rights which have been stolen from us. 

Find out more by about Eurocitizens and British in Europe and donate to their cause.

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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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