Brexit Might be Avoided, but at a Cost

Encouraging news begins to seep out of the UK. Even some of the most obtuse people are now beginning to accept that Brexit is a mess and, with luck, the whole thing will be scuppered by a rare attack of common-sense at the last moment.
I don't need to list the companies that have moved out of the UK, the NHS staff who have returned to Spain or elsewhere, the ghastly Democratic Unionists who seem to have control of the Red Button, the increase in racial attacks, the rise (and acceptance) of Tommy Robinson, the geographical ignorance of the Minister for Brexit, the geopolitical manipulation of Trump, Putin, Murdoch and the far-right, the Scottish dream of breaking from Westminster, the peculiar compliance of the Leader of the Opposition, the Sunday Times hiding its recent Brexit poll results, the recent remarks of the plotter Aaron Banks,  the fall in the pound sterling, the likely new rules on travel or (and imagine this!) the national stockpiling of food and medicine.
No, it's as good as over. That's not to say that it might still happen, as it is sometimes hard to talk hysterical people off of a windowsill, and there are many angry and small-minded ruffians still in a position of power.
The UK has a psychological problem to do with its place in the world. Since Hastings, it hasn't been invaded and it has 'ruled the waves' (at least in song) for hundreds of years. The British entitlement and supposed superiority to the pesky foreigners has produced some great literature over the centuries. But now, its place at the table of the World's Big Four has gone - and the choices appear to be to remain in a European partnership or in vassalage to the United Sates of America and Comrade Trump.
But what will happen if Brexit is successfully stifled and tragedy is averted? There are still millions of people in the UK who think with their fists rather than their brains, and many of these follow the Brexit xenophobia. Would they rise up in violent protest if Brexit were averted? Most likely. Is there somewhere they could go to feel that they belong? (Well, Northern Ireland I suppose, but I was thinking more the Falkland Islands, after all, they owe us one).
Would the UK's reputation and influence in the EU stand such an embarrassing U-turn when a contrite British parliament finds itself obliged to send a fawning message to Brussels. We've changed our mind, and can we have our old offices back?
Here in Spain, the prime minister recently said in a parliamentary speech that while the British think of little else than Brexit, the subject occupies only a tiny part of European politics. And this is the key to the whole mess - the UK is neither as important as it once was or indeed thinks that it deserves to be..

 
 

The USA Backs Away From Palomares

President Donald Trump is not willing to remove any more of the tons of earth contaminated by the infamous nuclear accident that occurred 52 years ago over Palomares (Almería). So said the Spanish Government in a parliamentary response in which it reveals that the Americans "have given to understand that it does not consider itself bound by the agreement between the Spanish Government and the Obama Administration and that has no intention of initiating bilateral talks towards this end".
To questions made by a deputy from Ciudadanos called Diego Clemente, the Government has now recognized what was hitherto an open secret: that the agreement reached in October 2015 between the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel García-Margallo, and his American counterpart, John Kerry, can now be considered as worthless.
The people of Palomares were already upset by the recent discovery of a delivery from Madrid of better than a ton of radioactive material from the CEIMAT environmental agency, material which was originally from Palomares and had been trucked back there in 2016 (details of which only emerged in October). The agency insists the material was earth taken in various tests over the years from the site of the fallen bombs, being simply "samples carried out in the area since 1966 that are of low activity".
Is Palomares dangerous? Back in 1966, nobody cared. It was a forgotten part of dusty land located on the coast, a modest agricultural village belonging to nearby Cuevas del Almanzora. Four nuclear bombs fell in January that year following a mid-air collision between a fueling place and a bomber. The bombs were unarmed and two ended up on some scrub-land, fouling an area of two-square kilometres with plutonium, a third fell on the beach without mishap, and a fourth in deep water off the coast. It was later fortuitously found by the American sub 'Alvin' on the very day that Franco visited the area. The Americans later hauled away a large amount of topsoil which was then (according to a 'spook' I knew in those times) spread on the earth in farms in South Carolina. 
Today, with much more knowledge of the dangers of radiation, plus the change in the local fortunes from small-time agriculture to heavy tourism, the worry of sickness or cancer from the fallout are evident. However, there doesn't seem to be any abnormalities in the area. So, despite a few jokes and some misgiving, the area is deemed safe for both agriculture and tourism. 
The news item from El País about Trump nevertheless ends with this:  
'The Government recognizes that the contaminated land in Palomares, as a result of the fall of four thermonuclear bombs when a B-52 bomber collided with a KC-130 tanker from the US Air Force, "represents a threat to the safety of the zone and an impediment when it comes to achieving economic development and promoting tourism ".

No to Nolotil (If you have blue eyes)

The first call to ban Nolotil, a pain-reliever popular in Spain, came from The Olive Press which launched a campaign against the popular drug back in August last year. The pills were held responsible for a number of deaths – oddly, all British visitors to Spain. The item read in part ‘...the drug seems to mostly affect people of fair skin, from the likes of the UK and Scandinavia, by poisoning their bone marrow and destroying their white blood cells...’. Could this be the case, a drug which could adversely affect fair-skinned people, yet be only found to be efficacious to those of a darker complexion?

It would appear so. Metamizol, the active ingredient in Nolotil, is banned in the UK, the USA and Australia says Soitu here.

Despite a petition at Change.org (which appears to have died – as they do), the Spanish health authority had until now ignored the situation, but this has now changed. El Español reports here that Nolotil and its imitators (Metamizol Aristo is one of them) is to be restricted in its sale at the pharmacies from northern visitors - essentially, Brits won't be able to buy it any more. The drug can bring on a blood condition called neutropenia, says the article, but it has only been found (apparently) in 'Anglo-Saxons'. The Times of London reports this week that ‘Tourists will be banned from taking a popular painkiller in Spain after the deaths of 10 Britons who had taken the drug’. Thus the Spanish pharmaceutical association AEMPS has asked doctors not to prescribe the drug to 'the floating population, where controls can't be made'. That's to say - to tourists.

BoT Editorial Nº 276: Strange Fellowships

De Cospedal, Bárcenas and Villarejo

The number of damaging recordings from the imprisoned ex-commissioner José Villarejo (who apparently worked in his spare time as a kind of cross between a private investigator and a mole within his own police force) continues. ‘...The tapes from 2009 reveal that the policeman and Ignacio López del Hierro, husband of the former secretary general of the PP, María Dolores de Cospedal, tried to stop investigations into corruption against the Popular Party and that the former defence minister herself was aware of these efforts...’. The story is at ElDiario.es. ‘Are you prepared to do some particular work for us?’ Cospedal and her husband ask Villarejo in a private meeting in the Partido Popular building in the Calle Génova, Madrid. El Mundo quotes the Moncloa political site here. El Español says that one conversation was about heaping all the blame on Bárcenas: ‘Cospedal and Villarejo agreed that Bárcenas would be Gürtel's only culprit: "If it's had it, then put it in the dustbin. As long as all the sh*t lands on him, it reaches no one else," the former commissioner told the secretary general of the PP in her office in Genoa. A shaken Cospedal told the RTVE on Tuesday that ‘the meetings made no difference in the Gürtel Investigation’.

From VozPópuli: ‘The former commissioner informed the former secretary general (Cospedal) of his ideological preferences: "Whenever your lot govern, I have never earned any money, but whenever the PSOE is in charge, since they are such a disaster, they ask me to do all kind of things" (here). The problem for Pablo Casado in this instance is that Cospedal gave her support to his candidacy for leader of the party last July and, indeed, he is ‘now rather quiet for once’ (here). Speculation exists that the ‘Moncloa’ news-site could be connected in some way to the ex-commissioner himself, in prison since last November. As the political world grits its collective teeth at the thought of even more tapes to be released, the ‘Cospedal’ recordings have now been passed to the National High Court (here).

The Municipal and European Elections. May 2019

This is the release from the INE regarding the local and European elections of May 26th 2019. It says that EU citizens over the age of 18 can vote in these elections if they ask to do so. They have until 30th January 2019 to claim this right (which they can do in their town hall - assuming they are registered on the padrón).
The Oficina del Censo Electoral will be sending out letters to the 575,072 Europeans resident in Spain who had not already (previously) asked for the right to vote in municipal and European elections. One can also fill out a form to register to vote by going to https://sede.ine.gob.es (here). It is accepted and assumed that theses residents will not be voting in the European elections in their own countries.
To date, 407,784 foreign Europeans are currently registered as being able to vote.
'Although the United Kingdom has shown its intention to leave the EU on March 30th 2019, the Spanish Census office has not removed Britons from the census for these elections', says the document, 'however, their inclusion will no longer have effect once the UK leaves the EU'.
It is, indeed, as we expected (and reported in Business over Tapas).
The above document and explanation are for EU citizens only. Spain also has some bilateral agreements with non EU countries, including Norway and (for some reason) New Zealand.
The document does however NOT make clear the Britons resident in Spain who are candidates in local elections or who appear on electoral lists. To prepare for the local elections, it is evidently necessary that the parties prepare their candidacies in good time. It would be odd to suddenly pull candidates from local lists just two months before an election. The Oficina del Censo Electoral needs to consider this point.

The Drums of War

The rivalry between Pablo Casado and Pedro Sánchez is showing a clear winner. While Pablo was in Brussels last week bearding an uncomfortable Angela Merkel about how Spain is going to the dogs, Pedro has reached out to Pablo’s bitterest rival from the recent leadership battle within the Partido Popular, Soraya Saénz de Santamaría, ex-President Mariano Rajoy’s right hand and ex Vice-president of Spain (yes, 'the poisonous dwarf'), to join the Council of State - the supreme consultative organ for the Government..

Furthermore, Sánchez offered in person the position for Santamaría without consulting her erstwhile teammate Casado. 

The exvicepresidenta of the Government decided to accept the offer after a few days of reflection following the phone call of Sánchez.

The Casado plan nevertheless continues in trying to hamstring the PSOE ‘okupa’ Government at every turn.
But now, it’s going too far. Pedro Sánchez was speaking about Brexit in a full session of Parliament on Wednesday, noting the loss to the European Union (and the hard times ahead for the UK) and, with a glance towards the Catalonian nationalist party-members in the Cortes, he made the obvious but telling point that united means stronger.

But then, in the reply from the Leader of the Opposition, the future ex-leader of the Partido Popular (re my forecast from August) Pablo Casado said that the Spanish president Pedro Sánchez was a golpista, a traitor to Spain because of his handling of the Catalonia crisis. Pedro Sánchez answered with: ‘If you don't withdraw that I'm a golpista you and I will never have anything more to say to each other’.

The spokesperson for the ERC, the Catalonian Republican Left party, Joan Tardà, said in his presentation that if Casado had his way, ‘we would all be shot’.

It's Getting Tight (Can we vote in May next year or not, pretty please?)

A community needs to have its spokespeople: who represent them, speak for them, collect taxes in their name, spend the common money wisely (without stealing more than 20%), plan for the future and celebrate the past. The town hall (in case the penny hadn't dropped) needs to attract extra funding from the central, regional and provincial authorities, chase after the elusive tourist (without buggering up the community for the residents), educate and entertain its children, provide culture for its general population, and protect its poor and infirm through social programs.
No doubt I've missed a few points, but, in short, the town hall needs to represent its population, and be chosen democratically by its population.
No tricks, like adding people to the padrón a few months before the elections (twenty or more people at one address?). No tricks, like pruning the padrón or neglecting to tell the foreign residents that they have to register to vote.
No tricks, like not telling the British residents if they can vote at all.
While that key question is being asked - no one is answering.
There are seventeen British councillors in Almería - and even they don't know what will happen. (The best info I can find for Spain in general comes from 2008, when there were 37 British councillors across the country.)
In 2014, a national newspaper published an article titled 'Immigrants in local politics?'. The article
said this: 'The political inclusion of immigrants is still very unequal with respect to the indigenous population. Despite the extension of their electoral rights, they are under-represented among the final number of elected councillors, and to a lesser extent on electoral lists'.
Some data was forthcoming: Towns with 15% foreign population - had less that 1% representation in local politics.
Foreigners currently make up 10% of the population of Spain.
In Spain, there are 240,934 British residents legally registered by the Ministry of the Interior (about the size of the city of Granada). In Almería, there are 14,318 Brits.
All of these, if over 18 years old, can currently vote (until told otherwise).
So who will tell us, pretty please, and when?
The provincial newspaper Almería Hoy looks at the current number of foreigners in each and every town in Almería. They note that in Mojácar, almost half of the entire population (from information provided by the town hall) is foreign - indeed, out of a total population of 6,630 inhabitants, 3,005 'mainly British' - are foreign.
Will we have the vote in May 2019, following the Brexit, or not?
Because without it, the town hall of Mojácar will cease to represent the wishes of around half of its citizens.