Brexit exodus: THOUSANDS of British expats living in Spain return to UK as Brexit nears

Figures show the number of Brits living in Bendorm has fallen from around 5,000 before the 2007 financial crash to 2,825 last year.

Almost 5,000 waved adios to Ibiza, Majorca and Menorca over the same period of time and by 2017, 14,981 expats remained on the Balearic islands.

Spanish newspaper El Pais reported the total number of British residents in Spain had dropped from 397,892 to 240,785 – a fall of 157,107.

It said data from Spain’s National Statistics Institute showed the number of residents from 15 EU-countries in Spain had fallen by a quarter but the number of British expats had fallen 40 percent.

Between 2012 and 2017, the number of Britons leaving Spain outnumbered those who arrived.

In the previous four years, 40,454 more Britons arrived in Spain than left.

The drop in expats was put down partly to a shake up in municipal enrolment regulations in Spain but many returnees fear Brexit will have a negative impact on their lives abroad while others say life on the continent has become too expensive with the devaluation of the pound.

Michelle Ball, who has a shop in La Xara, Alicante having arriving in Valencia as a 14-year-old, said: “Many are returning because life has become incredibly expensive.

“My mother has lost €160 a month in her pension since the Brexit referendum because of the devaluation of the pound.

“Now her pension is €690. And since the Spanish government made changes a few years back she also has to pay a portion for her medicines. It’s not a lot but it doesn’t help either.”

Sterling fell to its lowest against the euro in nearly a year yesterday after Theresa May played down the consequences of a no-deal Brexit.

She said leaving the EU without a deal “was not the end of the world” but the City felt her comments undermined Chancellor Philip Hammond’s warnings about the economic damage from a no-deal Brexit and piled pressure on the pound.

It comes as an October deadline to thrash out a Brexit deal was quietly dropped with senior officials from both camps admitting it would be impossible to reach an according by then.

Negotiators are still publicly insisting they want the deal wrapped up within the next seven weeks but sources say in reality the divorce terms will not be finalised until at least mid-November.

The deadline extension reveals negotiators are struggling to make progress in talks that have moved at a snail’s pace since agreement on a transitional period was reached back in March.

Brexit secretary Dominic Raab will return to Brussels to resume negotiations later this week insisting he expects to reach agreement with the EU27.