I BEG LEAVE TO REMAIN

Unlike Boris Johnson MP, I haven’t been sitting on the fence to publicly declare my position on the forthcoming EU Referendum!  It was a simple choice for me to make although the fact I am in my 27^th year in Spain prevents me from casting a vote for either campaign.

My vote goes to REMAIN.

Now, that might surprise some of you with my well-known views on many matters of current affairs but I simply have to think of my current country of residence.  If I was living full time in the UK I would have no hesitation in voting LEAVE.  I am a firm believer in a country being able to make its own laws and controlling its borders.  I have always been against the obvious underlying plan of eventually creating a United States of Europe.  It’s why I like the USA and Australia in this respect.  They pass a law or a sentence and the only body you can appeal to is the highest court of the land in that country.  In the UK, at present, you have a right of appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).  By the way, if the UK voted to leave the EU, it doesn’t automatically mean they would no longer be a signatory to the ECHR.  That would be subject to separate negotiations.   David Cameron has also warned that a vote to leave wouldn’t stem the flow of migrants either.   I believe that.  That situation has simply been allowed to go too far and like anything else, once it’s gone that distance there’s little you can do to stop it anyway. 

Living as I do as an official legal resident of Spain, I and anyone else that fits that description should have no reason to vote other than to remain, and I would cast my vote that way simply and ONLY because the consequences for British immigrants living in Europe are not known.  People in various quarters think they know what would happen, but it all depends on which scaremongering newspaper, TV station or “expert expat resident that knows everything” you speak to.

Will we lose our healthcare benefits or future increases in State pension?  Nobody knows, officially.  Will we need work permits or Visas to be able to live and work legally?  Nobody knows, officially.  Some people will understandably quote the fact that the UK and Switzerland (not in the EU, nor the European Economic Area (EEA)) are linked to the EU by a series of bilateral agreements enabling British citizens there to enjoy the accepted health and pensions benefits as others in the EU, but at this stage nobody knows whether the UK would reach agreements with Spain in these and other areas.  There is a mischievous school of thought suggesting that Spain would be very amenable to all the UK proposals...in exchange for Gibraltar!!

Will we find out the answers to these and other questions (actually, there are no other questions because health, pensions and work are the only concerns if the truth be told) before Referendum day of Thursday 23^rd June?  I don’t know, I doubt it, but one thing I am certain of it’s that rounds and rounds of negotiations between the UK and the other 27 member countries of the EU aren’t going to take place before the outcome of a Referendum is known.  What would it achieve and it would be a waste of time if the result was to remain and we continue to live here under the status quo.

So, to anyone reading this blog living in the EU and outside of the UK, a vote to REMAIN is the only logical and sensible choice.  A turkey wouldn’t vote in November for Christmas....or perhaps even an uncertain delay to Easter.  Think about it!