MADRID – Ten years after Britain voted to leave the European Union, a town in Spain with one of the highest populations of Brits is fighting to stage a mini-Brexit of its own.
British residents of Orihuela Costa – which sits on the coast south of Alicante on the Costa Blanca – are hoping to strike out for freedom from the shackles of Orihuela, a town inland that controls its finances.
The Orihuela Costa Independence Party (PIOC) wants to break away because its activists believe that authorities in Orihuela are not investing enough in the booming holiday resort.
Activists want to set up a separate council in Orihuela Costa, which would run the town’s finances.
The move recalls the recent symbolic vote by the residents of the village of Piddington in Oxfordshire to declare independence from the UK in protest at plans to locate about 1,200 migrants on a nearby military base.
Orihuela Costa, a seaside resort that boasts British pubs like the Royal Oak and a bowls club, was once dominated by British retirees. However, since the UK split from Brussels, a younger generation of UK expats has moved to the town.
After Brexit, some Brits who were not registered with authorities returned to the UK as the cost of living in Spain and house prices rose. Meanwhile, a younger generation of families with children have moved out.
A third of the 33,000 residents are British but this number rises in the summer holiday season when number of people staying in the town usually reaches about 100,000, say residents.
The separatists in Orihuela Costa are a mix of Britons, immigrants from other European countries, and Spaniards.
When Priscilla Cromie left Belfast 26 years ago to start a new life in Spain, she hoped to find a better future for her three children on the Costa Blanca.
However, she says that her hopes have been dashed by the way her new home in Orihuela Costa has been neglected by provincial authorities.
“When we first moved here, there was no school for the children. The kids had to go to school in temporary accommodation in Portakabins. The kids [in the town] are still in Portakabins 26 years later. There are two primary schools and one high school for 30,000 people,” said Cromie, 53, a former hairdresser and now political activist with the PIOC.
She said that over the past four years, council figures showed that Orihuela Costa received €9.14m (£7.65m) in investment while Orihuela received €28.5m (£23.85m), despite the fact both places had the same populations.
“We basically have one ambulance, no 24-hour police station or Civil Guard station, no fire station, no housing office or job centre. It is all in Orihuela, and there is no direct train link,” said Cromie.
The PIOC wants to field candidates in next May’s local council elections and believes it can eventually oust the conservative People’s Party and far-right Vox from power.
Britons can vote as long as they are residents and are registered with voting authorities.
However, the party claims that some British and European residents have been denied the right to register to vote at Orihuela council.
“Orihuela Costa contributes more money to provincial funds but gets less back. There used to be hardly any thefts, but now there are more, and there are not many police on the streets,” according to Roman Jiménez, the PIOC president who worked as a doctor in Britain for 15 years before returning to Spain.
“It used to be a place where many British people here were retirees and never learnt Spanish. But since Brexit, some have become residents or a new generation of younger Brits have arrived, and they have tried to integrate and speak Spanish.”
He added: “We believe as the population of Orihuela Costa grows, so will the number of people who will vote for us. And this could mean in a few years we could have enough to run the council.”
Orihuela Council did not respond to a request for comment from The i Paper.