Laurence Dollimore
EXPAT pensioners are losing hundreds of euros a month thanks to Brexit.
Since the UK voted to leave the EU on June 23, British pensioners in Spain have seen their monthly allowances plummet.
It came with the pound sinking to a 31-year low against the dollar and dropping nearly 10% on the Euro, sitting at around the 1.19 mark this week.
“My pension has dropped by €301 a month,” Angela Webster, 73, told the Olive Press, “That’s a drop of €3,600 a year.”
Webster, who works part-time as a gestor in the Canary Islands, says she works with many expats who rely solely on their pensions.
“I know dozens of people who were only just managing on their pensions anyway, so this must be making things very difficult,” said Webster, from Yorkshire, who was ineligible to vote having lived in Spain for 30 years.
“We feel as though nobody has taken the concerns of the two million Brits who live in the EU into consideration, and particularly the pensioners.
“They just didn’t think this out before voting to leave. You couldn’t run a business with that lack of forward planning. It’s like our future depending on the toss of a coin!”
She added: “We now need confirmation that our circumstances won’t change, that health cover will continue to be provided and that long term residents in other EU countries will continue to be treated in the same way as EU residents in the UK.”
Alicante resident Diane Lawton 68, who relies solely on her pension, expects to lose a significant amount when her pension arrives in September, particulalry if the exchange rate fails to bounce back.
“While I understand their feelings on immigration, I feel the Leave voters didn’t look at the wider issues,” Diane, originally from Birmingham, but living in Spain for 20 years, added.
Various pensioners on Facebook group ‘Bremain in Spain’ have lost as much as €533 a month since Brexit.
Der, what a surprise. Who’d have thought it? Blame the turkeys.
Another of your weird comments that neither help the victims nor adds a remedy!
IMO I’m confident that either Stg will rise or the Euro will fall in due course. ‘Events dear boy’
The remedy is simple Mike. Refuse to sign article 50 and watch the pound shoot back up. Your remedy (“wait and see”) leaves these poor souls accessing a food bank in the meantime. And for sure, it WILL be a “meantime”
The people mentioned will not be reliant on food banks with a drop in pension of 3,600 euros a year. The fall in stg value to reduce their pension that much would suggest that’s a pretty big pension anyway!
The real sufferers are those who only get a UK State Pension not a large company pension! Angela Webster cannot put the blame on millions of Brits for not considering her who has lived in Spain for 30 yrs and others similar.
dead on Mike!
Yes, spot on. I’ve calculated that a person that has lost €533 a month is on a pension of over €4,300. I don’t begrudge people a single cent, but don’t go bleating like this. Incredible.
Roll on an Independent Scotland in the EU or something similiar, can’t wait for my Scottish passport and still being European.
This total scam of blaming immigration for the downfall of the British Empire, wake up for goodness sake.
Cannot believe that ex pats, who are immigrants in Spain can’t see through the lies and extreme right wing agenda.
so sick of the scottish wingeing all the time, hopefully sturgeon will get you independant and you can all leave your british jobs and bugger of back to scotland. hurrah that will mean we dont have to listen to how great scotland is and ask so why are you here then.
If Sturgeon gets her way and Scotland leaves the Union then I could see Scotland being bankrupt on its own and then lumped in with Club Med countries. They’d have to inherit their share of National debt, the oil price is low and they think ALL North Sea oil is theirs, their coffers are pretty bare.
Then of course if they were attacked the rest of UK could say ‘get on with it’ and kilts would have to come down to scare off the invaders!
Whilst I appreciate that people reliant upon fixed pensions from the Uk may lose at least for a short period of time, I would wonder why someone resident here for 30 years is so dependent upon a UK pension, when obviously they would be entitled to a Spanish pension, and in effect their pension should be paid them in euros?
Stay the course, everything will be fine… Good luck with that guys. The pound is going to continue to fall… Sorry but “the victims” didn’t do much to convince their friends and families back home, so no one on earth feels sorry. Hate to burst your bubble.
You left Britain 30 years ago, you don’t derserve a British pension. If you want to go suning it up in Spain without contributing to the UK economy for 30 years, spending your converted British pound supplementing the Spanish economy then that’s your tough luck. You made your bed – lay in it, and stop moaning! You people make me sick – contribute nothing, expect everything.
€533 a month loss on a 10% swing. That’s a very nice looking pension at over €5,000 a month!
Exactly Bluemoon, I’ve said similar above, Angela Webster is on a healthy pension and perhaps she also gets SP on top of her fine company pension, no food bank for her even after 30 years living in Spain!
The pound to euro relationship has fluctuated over the years and in fact not too long ago was almost 1:1. No one shouted foul then. As May said Brexit means Brexit, and in fact I firmly believe that GB will be better off for it, financially. I agree with the other comments, you cannot complain that the euro is weak when you don’t even live in Britain. Get over it and live your life in the sun. If a few cents on the euro make that much difference to you then you should perhaps move back, if you had the sense to retain a property in the UK
Wow get your facts right boys I for one was told to retire to Spain as it has a healthy lifestyle and weather In UK had Bronchitus 8 years pneumonia 3 times and the Dr said if you don’t go and live in sA hot climate you will be dead next year !! Shock so at 70 years of age we moved here and love it Not a cold for 12 years but sadly my husband passed on after 3 years at 75 We both worked all our lives from the age of 17 yrs paid all our stamps and looked forward to a pension which we had paid into all our lives. Now because of Brexit my pension has dropped €100 per month making it well below € 1000 a month So get real and put that in your pipe and smoke it I cannot sell my house because of the Spanish situation and have already dropped the figure by €184000 .so after leaving UK wealthy I am now a struggling Pensioner !!i wonder if you lot have paid for your pensions when you leave work or you possibly have been stocking the government for years on unemployment saying you aren’t prepared to do the work the immigrants do A jobs a job get real !!
Very brave Angie. I’m willing to bet there are many older people in a similar quandary in Spain, but maybe too embarrassed to come on here and say so. You’ve told ’em girl! BUT, don’t expect sympathy or understanding from these hard-hearted clods.
The Daily Wailers are in full throttle, talking the usual rubbish. PJ it’s not the Euro that’s weak, it’s the pound that is dropping – like a stone.
Ms. Muck. Margot wishes to retain her EU membership however she can, the Scots voted in a majority to Remain. Sensible Scots! So typical of Leavers to advise people to “bugger off back” to where they came, which of course was the only desire they had in voting “Out.”
Then there’s Edward Schadenfreude who is immensely jealous of those with the gumption to make a new life elsewhere.
And Mike, who dismisses those pensioners scratching by on a State Pension, with his advice to “hang in there”. It will be all worth it when his dream utopia emerges from the rubble.
It’s about more than pensions my Wailing friends, the faeces are only just approaching the fan. As Jimmy Cricket used to say “And there’s more!”
See sense Theresa and lose your biro. Don’t sign article 50!
You’ve a b—-y cheek stefanmoan you idiot! I’m sticking up for those pensioners on State pensions, learn to read posts before trying to engage what little brain you have! I’ve not said ‘hang in there’, and when have I mentioned my ‘dream utopia’? You really do make it up as you go along, you’re just a pathetic wum!
BTW moaner, neither I nor anyone else that I know will be signing article 50 and UK is still in the EU for the foreseeable future. Stop whingeing!
“IMO I’m confident that either STG will rise or the Euro will fall in due course. “Events dear boy”. What is that Mike, other than advice to “hang in there”? That’s a long way from “sticking up for state pensioners” Also missing the point about article 50. It isn’t in your gift to “sign it”, that’s a job for Mrs. May – if she’s daft enough.
Harold Macmillan you aint. Ratty you certainly are.
Now Macmillan & Ratty to add to your weird diatribe, I’ve told you but you can’t understand what you say, that you have made up those descriptions above and not I.
I realise fully that you cannot help yourself and you are clearly suffering from the vote and one must make allowances for you!
As for State Pensioners of which you might be one, whilst I feel for them as we have friends in Spain who are SPs, there’s nothing I can do to help the exchange rate in your favour! However markets do, and will rise and fall due to ‘events dear boy’!
I am an expat living in Spain and yes, Brexit has caused problems. I never moan or complain to anyone because half the people you tell don’t care, the other half are pleased about it!
Besides, when I pay my taxes next year, the percentage drop in the exchange rate will mean I will pay that percentage less in income tax.
Whatever point of view you might have about Brexit, it certainly seems devisive and has brought out the ugly side of human nature i.e. jealousy, bitterness and in some cases, downright hatred. You only have to look at the comments section on any article in the UK press about expats in Spain to see that many people are actually revelling in the misfortunes of others brought about by Brexit.
It doesn’t matter how long ago a person left the UK, if they paid into the system and clocked up the right number of years, they are entitled to a UK state pension, end of.
Correct Jane G. Jealousy really IS a green-eyed monster. But not as monstrous as the current rancid xenophobia and racism that has been released in Britain in the wake of Brexit.
What has ‘jealousy’ got to do with it, yet another silly comment by you so keep making your spiel up as you go, is it an obsession of yours? Strange to see your ‘IS’ accentuated! Are you in Britain to notice what you’ve stated or just reading newspapers?
Here’s a tip for you Mike. There is no longer need for newspapers, they’ve invented this thing called the internet. Try it, you could even find attribution for your daft “Events” quote (which you don’t seem to know). It could also pay you to refer back to your own posts and realise nothing is being “made up”.
So you really do believe everything you read and its taken you hours to come up with that one? Hilarious! So basically you’ve not been to the UK to experience the racism etc you go on about, because if you had you’d know there’s none around here that’s noticeable!
You’re unqualified to give tips therefore.
Stuart is right btw about not feeding you!
Mike – don’t feed the troll and he will go away, they always do when ignored for long enough.
Many Brits came to live in Spain on a shoestring. They were always going to be in trouble with a falling £ or rising prices, same goes in France.
The Italian banks are in big trouble and so are the German banks that lent to them, they learned nothing from Greece. Just as Spain and Portugal have been let of the hook, watch Brussels bail out Commerzbank and Deutchebank.
The ECB has now taken on liabilities that it can never repay – the Ponzi scheme is wobbling – what is a piece of paper – a piece of paper, that’s all.
I don’t agree