Rob Horgan
To sign the petition click here
OVER 15,000 people have signed a petition to give British expats the right to joint nationality in Spain.
But we need your support to ensure we are allowed to continue working and living in your country.
We have chosen to live here and call Spain our home, while many of us have started businesses here and are now raising families.
On top of this, plenty of us have Spanish partners and speak your language, albeit often not perfectly.
We feel we contribute a lot to the local economy, particularly on the coast, and historically our links to Spain, via writers such as Paul Preston, Gerald Brenan and Laurie Lee, is massive.
Above all, we feel European and entirely opposed to Brexit, brought about by xenophobic campaigning and lies back home.
Yet we are the ones in the firing line… and the ones most likely to be affected by it.
We hope you understand our plight that leaves us in limbo and could make us ineligible to work.
Your minister Senor Margallo has said as much.
In the UK, a Spaniard can get joint citizenship after five years – a fact ironically known by Margallo whose own son, based in London, has recently applied.
So we are asking, hoping – even pleading – that you come to our aid and help us when we most need it.
A few local mayors and dignitaries have already come out and said it. Now we need everyone to help.
It is fitting that our appeal should come exactly 80 years since the start of the civil war, in which thousands of young British volunteers lost their lives.
Why? Because they believed passionately about Spain. And so do we.
We add to the rich fabric of your country. We love it here and don’t want to go home.
What’s all this “we” business? I am not “entirely opposed to Brexit”. Don’t you think this article, addressing Spaniards, should be written in Spanish??
Andy, it is in Spanish, as the lead story on the website. This is merely an English translation… See Spanish version aqui: http://theolivepress.es/spain-news/2016/07/20/llamamiento-a-todos-los-espanoles-a-que-apoyen-la-peticion-de-expatriados-britanicos-para-conseguir-la-doble-nacionalidad-tras-brexit/
The “we” applies to those who have signed, or wish to sign, the petition. You are welcome to wallow in the Brexit Andy.
I am wallowing thanks. Walling in the news that the uk economy is fine, that the pound is fine, that trade is continuing, that civilisation as we know it was unaffected. All the lies and scaremongering have been proven false. Wallowing wallowing… You carry on hiding under the table mate, you’ll be there a while :-)
Who is Senor Margallo?
The other point is this – after ten years residency, you can apply for Spanish nationality (or five years if you are from South America, or one year if you marry a Spaniard, or half an hour if you are a world ranking sportsman)
you should leave voluntarily, it is not fine tolive in a country where people , in the main, strongly dislike you
Immigration is a two edged sword… On the one hand foreigners bring in different ideas about life and culture, on the other, they bring in offensive behaviors – both beneign and criminal.
But cross cultural movement is here to stay, and all need to accommodate the good, and reject the bad.