The Blues Come for Brexit

 We wonder, maybe, how things are getting along in the UK following the acrimonious divorce known as ‘Brexit’ – a split which left the departing defendant, his head held high, with little more than a caravan, an overseas bank-account he neglected to mention to the court, a hefty lawyers’ bill, and the cat.

The reason given was that we Brits were concerned about the un-elected people running the European Union – the second or third largest political and economic power in the world – as if we in the UK choose our own civil servants, or practice some form of proportional representation (rather than first-past-the-post).

A country where the current prime minister is eternally on holiday and the next one will be chosen by a handful of right-wing politicians who still evidently believe in the Raj.

The French at least have eleven deputies (members of parliament we call them) who represent solely those French people who live abroad. Imagine – eleven MPs exclusively speaking for the interests of the French diaspora overseas. But wait: in the UK, they want – finally, long after the Brexit boat has sailed – to allow us expats to vote for our ‘local’ MP according to his views on the price of sugar-beet. Not a dedicated representative and spokesperson for our interests, but the one chosen from our last place of residence.

That should water us down.

There are around a million three hundred thousand Brits living in the EU, without voice, presence, reputation or prominence. That’s around the same number as the entire population of Estonia or Cyprus. Or Glasgow.

Say, shouldn't we have our own police force?

Here in Spain, we Brits slid quietly from second class Europeans to third class residents. We have a special card called the Foreign Devil’s Card (also known as the TIE) and we must queue in the non-European line. We can no longer have a British bank account and we must accept that we can’t get parcels from the UK as we used to. As to whether we will be able to continue to vote in local elections (that’s to say, in the municipality where we are now settled), that’s still open to doubt: until the Interior Ministry says otherwise.

It could have been worse. Imagine that Brussels righteously decided that we should all have been shipped back to what would have essentially been some camp erected (by Polish labour) on Salisbury Plain.

Pork-pies and Gentleman’s Relish are no longer easy to find in the stores here, although we can still watch British television, eat fish and chips at Dave’s and find an unread (and unreadable) pile of trashy free English-language newspapers dumped outside. The front-page leader with something about the local dog home.

The Spaniards wonder how we made such a mess of the whole thing. Even the Catalonians, keen to depart Spain for pastures unknown, have now changed their minds after seeing how Brexit has affected the UK.

Referendums aren’t a very good idea anyway. A popular vote supposes that there will be another one coming along in four years’ time; whereas, a referendum is a one-off. You can’t vote the Brexit a second time say the winners of the plebiscite. Although, given the chance, they would probably vote in a referendum in favour of hanging as well.

Things haven’t gone well, and the British politicians (and the media) will blame the coronavirus, the irascible Europeans anxious to put a spoke in the gilded British wheel, global warming, partisan attacks from ‘the Remoaners’, the war in the Ukraine, Northern Ireland or – best of all – the pesky French.

Who apparently hate us.

Or have forgotten us entirely. One of the two.

The British left the EU, not because of those un-elected foreign bureaucrats, or the lies on the side of Boris’ bus, or the propaganda from the Daily Express and other media owned by non-tax paying billionaires; but by the simple fact that, following from the implicit belief that we British are better than everyone else – if Britain couldn’t run the European Union (for better or worse), then it didn’t want to be a part of it.

Most Europeans, not to put too fine a point on it, think we have gone nuts. Britain is suffering from shortages (of trained workers, farm produce, foreign sales and promotion) along with extra paperwork and bureaucratic blockages, while we TIE holders living in the un-wounded remains of the European Union are now in the odd position of being better-off than our Island brethren.

At least we can stay here for longer than ninety days.

Robin Hood Never Wore a Tie

The cheek of the Government, which, faced with the several ills of war in the Ukraine, the threat of Russian gas shortfalls, global warming, price hikes, shortages and the possibility of losing the next election (late in 2023), has put a tax on the earnings of the wealthiest companies and banks.

Not that they are happy, Bless ’em. We need to be lowering taxes say the PP, not raising them (and especially not on the wealthy). ‘If Ana Botín (Banco Santander) and Ignacio Sánchez Galán (Iberdrola) don’t like it, we must be doing the right thing’, says Pedro Sánchez with an eye on the less well-off voter.

After all, the five largest Spanish banks made a profit in the first half of 2022 of 10,295 million euros. So there’s some wriggle-room here.

It’s understandable that the CEOs concerned are indignant, including the fellow from the power company who is reported to earn each day what Pedro Sánchez is paid in a year.

It will never do.

When not portraying a modest impersonation of Robin Hood, the economies imposed by the Government to keep us from all going bust this coming winter include adjusting the air-con in public buildings, shops and bars to 27ºC and the heating to 19ºC, switching off the shop-window displays and the lighting of public monuments at 10.00pm and all doors to have an automatic closing system to stop waste: all this to run until November next year.

There will be fines of up to 100 million euros for those businesses who leave the window open with the air-con running (first-time offenders will probably get a discount).

Better still, says Pedro Sánchez, if and where possible, we should ditch our jackets and ties.

On this last point, I’m way ahead of him – having not worn a tie since my school-days – except for that one occasion in the Gibraltar registry office in the summer of 1986.

I imagine the next ‘economy’ will be the lowering of the top speed on the motorway, perhaps to 100kph (which will, mathematically speaking, lower the amount of fuel we use by 0.0000001%).

They may also want to control the temperatures of the fridges in the shops, and each iced-lolly will need to be sold with a cup and a small wooden spoon while the frozen peas will have a ‘best eaten today’ sticker.

I almost feel guilty about the small fan I bought in Brico Dépôt yesterday for 18€. But, you see, it’s very hot in our place.

Still, it’ll be better here than in Germany come the winter, where, thanks to the reduction of the Russian gas, they will all be having to take cold showers, poor dears…

Perhaps an energy shortage is a good thing, as it will give this poor Earth a small respite –enough to bring us safely through to the summer of 2023.