Brexit travel question of the day: Simon Calder on studying abroad

The UK is in the departure lounge – destination unknown. So all this week Simon Calder is answering your questions about the impact of the EU referendum result on travel

University of Salamanca

Q I’ve taken early retirement and before the referendum I was intending to go to Salamanca in Spain, learn Spanish and then settle somewhere in the country. Can I still go and live there - or do restrictions apply immediately?

Jacqueline F

A You can certainly go and live in Spain now. Until the day the UK leaves the European Union, British citizens are fully entitled to move freely, to live, study and work in any of the other 27 countries. That is likely to end two years after Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty is triggered.

What happens next, though? The short answer is: no one knows. Calling a referendum with no clear picture of what the alternative was to the status quo was an act of staggering incoherence.

Voters knew what the UK’s relationship quo was like, and many people were unhappy with it. But the fundamental flaw of the referendum was that Leave voters could have no clear idea of what the relationship would look like after a Brexit. While the Remain side warned of dire consequences, the Leave lobby depicted a world in which the UK could break free from all the aspects of Europe that are unpopular, while retaining the parts that we like – such as the right to go and live in Spain.

Of course before Spain joined the European Community (as the EU was) in 1986, many British people lived and worked in Spain and vice versa. No doubt that situation will prevail once again, and it is unlikely that Spain will put up barriers to UK pensioners who are effectively transferring wealth from Britain to Spain. But neither I, nor you, nor anyone else knows what the rules will be.

Every day, our travel correspondent Simon Calder tackles a reader’s question. Just email yours to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder