Welcome to Bremain in Spain’s first Brexit/Election update on the weeks’ news.  We have given a “taster” of each article and if you would like to read the whole story please click on the links.  We plan to produce the Bremain BrexElection Briefing each Monday right up to the General Election on 8 June.  

How do we get the best MPs for Brexit Britain?  

Vote thoughtfully…

Gina Miller has launched ‘Best for Britain,’ which she says that, “a campaign aimed at supporting candidates who will stand by their principles, insist on real debate, and have an open mind on the UK-EU deal in the years ahead. Put simply, we believe in real parliamentary democracy. We plan to use the money that has been so generously donated through our GoFundMe page to support parliamentary candidates committed to keeping the options open for the British people until the detail of the deal is on the table. We will do all we can to make sure the next government has no mandate to diminish our rights.”  (Gina Miller The Guardian 21 April)

General election 2017: Tony Blair says Brexit stance more important than party…

Tony Blair has urged voters not to elect MPs who “back Brexit at any cost”, whichever party they are from.  The ex-PM told the BBC that Brexit was a bigger issue than party allegiance for the general election on 8 June.  (UK Politics BBC News 23 April)

Remain campaigners urge voters to unseat Brexit-backing MPs…

Lord Mandelson, an Open Britain board member, claimed it was counterproductive for prime minister Theresa May to enter Brexit negotiations with a rigid set of red lines and said he believed millions of jobs were at stake.

Stephen Dorrell, the former Tory MP who chairs European Movement, said: “This election is about something much bigger than party politics – it is about our future relationship with the rest of Europe.” (Anushka Asthana, Rowena Mason and Jessica Elgot The Guardian 24 April)

Regrexit: Majority say Britain was wrong to vote to leave the EU…

The tide could be turning against Brexit: for the first time since the referendum, more people have said Britain was wrong to vote to leave the EU.  In a poll by YouGov for the Times newspaper, 45% of respondents said Britain was wrong to vote out, 43% said Britain was right to leave, while 12% answered ‘don’t know’. (Jane Howdle, Yahoo News, 27 April)

A Bremain expat campaigner has branded the UK’s upcoming general election as ‘good as a second referendum’…

John Moffett of Bremain in Spain insisted that expats had the power to influence the outcome of the EU divorce negotiations by backing pro EU candidates in the snap June 8 poll. He said even those who have lived in Spain too long to have a vote could have an impact by urging friends and family back in the UK to vote for an MP in favour of ‘at least a softer Brexit or associate EU membership.’ (Chloe Glover. Olive Press 27 April) 

Tories’ ‘imperial vision’ for post-Brexit trade branded disruptive and deluded…

The head of the African, Caribbean and Pacific group of nations, Dr Patrick Gomes, has ruled out a free trade deal with the UK until at least six years after Brexit and taken a sideswipe at the idea of a new British trade empire. He said that it had taken six years for his home country, Guyana, and other Caribbean States to negotiate a trade pact with the EU and that it would be “very disruptive” to push for a deal with the UK within two years of a formal Brexit. (Arthur Neslen, The Guardian 28 April)

Vote for an election that isn’t a total yawn

“There is a suggestion emanating from some respectable political quarters, and also from the office of Tony Blair, that voters should consider abandoning party loyalties on June 8 and voting for whichever local candidate offers the best chance of reversing or moderating Brexit.” (Giles Coren The Times 28 April)

Theresa May was right to call the election before the public feels the real consequences of Brexit…

There can be no doubt that the UK’s economic situation is much more likely to deteriorate than improve in the next few years, and with it the Government’s popularity and electoral chances. Thus far, for understandable reasons, Brexit and the economy have usually been treated as separate election issues. What the latest depressingly depressed figures on economic growth show is that the two are, in fact, intimately related. Brexit is an economic issue as well as one about sovereignty and identity. (The Independent Voices Editorial 28 April)

Expats like me living in the EU are being denied the right to vote in the general election…

“If Britons living in the EU were angry about not voting in the referendum last year, can you imagine how they feel about being denied their democratic right once again?  On 23 June last year, three million British citizens across Europe could not vote in the EU referendum because of a ban on voting for Brits who have lived overseas for more than 15 years. They were denied the opportunity to vote on their own futures, when they are amongst the most likely to be badly affected by the outcome. To say that many people were upset and angry is a gross understatement. I was disenchanted with the failings of this supposed “democratic exercise” and as a result became the Chair of Bremain in Spain, to campaign for our rights as British citizens in the EU.” (Sue Wilson, The Independent Voices 30 April)

You will see we saved the best to last, our very own Sue Wilson’s article in The Independent and she promises she did not call us “expats”!  We hope you have enjoyed reading all the above extracts from important news stories published over the last 7 days and would welcome any comments you may have.