Jason MoorePalma22/03/2019 07:14
TW

When I was coming down in the lift at the Palma convention centre after a lunch where the British ambassador had been guest speaker, I heard a person say that he wouldn't have stood up in a room full of people and tried to defend Brexit and the government's handling of it. But ambassador Simon Manley did just that and he was most impressive. He said that Britons shouldn't be too concerned about their rights in Spain after Brexit because they had been guaranteed by the Spanish government and there had been no major nosedive in UK holiday bookings to Spain. He underlined the fact that Britain was the largest foreign investor in the Balearics and he also stated that the British economy was on track to grow at the same level as France and Germany.

Just last week I had sat through a conference at which an economist had claimed that Britain and Brazil were the bad boys of the world economies. There is concern about holiday bookings in the Balearics, but the big worry is not Britain but Germany. The ambassador did say that Spain was facing increased competition from north Africa and Turkey and this may explain why there might be a drop in British tourism this year.

The British ambassador was obviously doing his job of defending Britain, but what he said was quite refreshing after months of doom and gloom about Brexit in Britain. The message from the ambassador was keep calm and carry on.