Brexit

Geraldine Noel was a lawyer in the UK when she accidentally found herself relocating to Malta, a sun-drenched Mediterranean island where English is an official language

It was a complete twist of fate that led high-flying lawyer Geraldine Noel to swap her life for a Mediterranean paradise where English is spoken as a first language.

She said: “I never would have thought adopting a rescue dog and being banned from bringing it into the UK would have led me to settling in Malta, but I love my life here in the sun and wouldn’t change a thing.”

Born in south-west London, Geraldine was offered a position at a Maltese bank. This was before Brexit, she explains, when it was considerably easier for British citizens to live and work across EU nations.

She told the I newspaper how property prices on the sun-soaked island have shifted dramatically since she first arrived 16 years ago: “I’m very fortunate. I was able to purchase a property in the north of the island in St Paul’s Bay 13 years ago. So I’ve been able to avoid the year-on-year increase of property prices that we are currently dealing with.”

Soaring property prices are being driven by a significant surge in demand. Malta’s population is currently estimated to sit at around 580,000 – with much of the growth attributed to American retirees, drawn in by the Mediterranean haven’s warm climate and straightforward access to Italy, Greece, and North Africa. The single largest expat community in Malta, however, remains British – with roughly 15,000 Brits calling the island home.

Geraldine continued: “When I moved, a two-bedroom in St Paul’s Bay would have cost between £150,000 and £250,000 and now that same property would be worth between £200,000 and £350,000.”

This surge in property demand has sparked a construction boom, with new homes and extensions springing up across the island. The downside, Geraldine notes, is increased traffic and noise.

Yet it’s Malta’s tax system that proves most enticing to British expats, she explains: “Tax efficiency is one of the most appealing things about living here. Malta still has the British non-dom regime and a variety of tax breaks that include a 15% rate on income remitted to the country, and no capital gains or inheritance tax.”

Sadly, moving to Malta from the UK has become more complicated in recent years: “The curse of Brexit, though, means it’s so much harder for young people to move over – you have to have a work permit or be on a residency programme,” Geraldine said.

That said, she points out, skilled tradespeople – plumbers, carpenters or electricians – will find abundant opportunities thanks to Malta’s construction surge.

Ultimately, Malta offers an exceptional quality of life, Geraldine insists. She cultivates tropical fruit in her garden and lives just a five-minute stroll from the beach, while still enjoying familiar home comforts for nostalgic Brits: “There are so many things that make Malta appealing to British nationals,” Geraldine says.

“English is an official language, there are British pubs galore that do roasts with all the trimmings, red post boxes, Marks & Spencer. You can get Waitrose and Iceland-branded products in certain supermarkets. I actually have Greggs sausage rolls in the freezer right now.”

Malta remained under British rule until it achieved independence in 1964. As a result, English is one of the island’s two official languages, alongside Maltese.

Major rule changes have come into force

Millions of holidaymakers head to Spain each year, with the nation being a firm favourite with those from the UK. Prior to Brexit, British travellers could enter Spain fairly easily.

However, since the UK left the European Union, new rules have come into force. For instance, your passport must display a ‘date of issue’ that falls within 10 years of your arrival date, and if you renewed your passport prior to October 1, 2018, it could carry a date of issue exceeding 10 years, rendering it invalid for entering the Schengen zone (which includes Spain).

As well as this, those travelling on a British passport can only visit the Schengen area for 90 days in any 180-day period. And if you’re entering Spain you’ll need to scan your passport, have a photo taken of your face, and scan four of your fingerprints, under the new Entry/Exit System (EES).

Once you have registered for travel under the EES, your digital EES record is valid for three years or until your passport expires if this is within the three year window. According to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), alongside a valid passport, UK visitors may also be required to produce a return or onward ticket and/or proof of valid travel insurance at border control.

You may also need to prove you have enough money for your stay, and show proof of accommodation. This could be a hotel booking, or the address of a property you own. Alternatively, this could be an invitation if staying with friends, family, or a third party, such as a ‘carta de invitation’ completed by your hosts.

Former UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting has announced he will run against Prime Minister Keir Starmer as Labour leader if an election is to take place. Streeting voiced strong support for rebuilding ties with Europe, saying the UK should pursue “a new special relationship” with the EU and potentially rejoin the bloc in the future.

Without these you may be refused entry to Spain, the Foreign Office has warned

Millions of Brits flock to Spain each year, with the European country remaining a firm favourite among UK holidaymakers.

Spain’s appeal is undeniable – from its warmer weather, breathtaking coastlines and mouth-watering cuisine to its charming cities and verdant landscapes. With another hectic summer of international travel expected for 2026, we’ve looked at the entry requirements for Spain for anyone holding a UK passport. And travellers may not know they could be asked to present certain extra documents upon arrival – or face being refused entry.

According to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), alongside a valid passport, UK visitors may also be required to produce a return or onward ticket and/or proof of valid travel insurance. You may additionally need to demonstrate that you have sufficient funds for your stay, with the required amount varying depending on your accommodation arrangements.

Border officials may also request proof of accommodation, which could take the form of a hotel reservation or proof of address if you’re staying at a property you own. Alternatively, this might be an invitation or proof of address if staying with friends, family or a third party, such as a ‘carta de invitation’ completed by your hosts, the FCDO adds.

As well as this, new rules introduced post-Brexit mean that Brits travelling to the Schengen Area – which includes Spain – on a UK passport may need to check their travel documents now. This is because your passport must display a ‘date of issue’ that falls within 10 years of your arrival date, and if you renewed your passport prior to October 1, 2018, it could carry a date of issue exceeding 10 years, rendering it invalid for entering the Schengen zone.

Additionally, your passport must show an ‘expiry date’ of at least 3 months beyond the day you intend to depart the Schengen Area (the expiry date need not fall within 10 years of the issue date).

Almost a decade after British voters chose to leave the European Union on 23 June 2016, the FTSE 100 has been hitting record highs.

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Yet beneath the headline, the financial scars of that vote remain unmistakable.

A new Morningstar analysis titled “The Brexit Decade” laid out the damage in numbers that are hard to dismiss.

Since the referendum, UK equity funds have bled roughly $160 billion in cumulative net outflows, six consecutive years of redemptions that have hardened into a structural loss of confidence rather than a passing cyclical drawdown.

How wide a performance gap has opened between UK stocks and comparable equity markets since the vote? And how has the pound fared?

UK FTSE 100 has trailed Wall Street and continental Europe

The numbers speak for themselves.

The FTSE 100, the benchmark tracking the 100 largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange, has gained 62% since Brexit.

Over a 10-year window, that works out to a compounded annual growth rate of just under 5%.

Wall Street has run a different race. The S&P 500 has rallied 253% over the same stretch, a 13.4% annualised return — almost three times the pace of UK large-caps.

The gap is not just a transatlantic story.

Within Europe, the German DAX has returned 151% and the Euro STOXX 50 has gained 109%, suggesting Brexit has weighed more heavily on London than on the continental rivals it left behind.

Why UK markets lagged: A pre-existing weakness Brexit made worse

According to Morningstar, Brexit was a catalyst rather than the root cause of the UK market’s underperformance.

The UK equity market entered the 2016 referendum with pre-existing structural headwinds — declining domestic pension demand, capital rotating toward US growth markets, and an unfavourable sector mix tilted toward energy, banks and miners rather than the technology platforms that dominated the 2010s.

Brexit amplified and accelerated these trends, increasing the UK’s perceived risk premium and damaging confidence at a critical moment.

Investor behaviour has been unambiguous. UK allocations were systematically redeployed to the US, while passive strategies gained share as active UK equity economics deteriorated.

The UK’s footprint in global benchmarks has roughly halved over the past two decades, falling from nearly 10% of the MSCI ACWI to around 4% today.

In the most aggressive sterling-allocation fund category tracked by Morningstar, average UK equity weights have collapsed from 40% to 18%, with the freed-up capital systematically redeployed to US equities.

The asset management industry has felt the chill directly.

Around 380 UK equity strategies have closed since 2016 against just over 200 launches, and the share of total assets sitting in passive UK equity vehicles has climbed from 22% to 46% over the same period.

Active large-cap managers, including Columbia Threadneedle, Jupiter, Liontrust, Aviva and Schroders, have absorbed the heaviest outflows. Vanguard, iShares and Phoenix Group have absorbed the inflows.

The damage was then compounded by Covid-19, the global inflation shock, geopolitical conflict, falling foreign direct investment, weaker goods exports and domestic policy missteps — most notably the gilt market crisis of autumn 2022.

Isolating Brexit’s impact is difficult, Morningstar acknowledges, but there is no serious argument that it did not materially worsen outcomes.

Sterling: Weaker where it matters most

The currency market tells a parallel story. The pound is down about 10% versus the US dollar and 12% versus the euro since the Brexit vote.

Against the world’s two reserve currencies, sterling has lost ground.

On the eve of the Brexit referendum, one pound bought €1.31. Almost a decade later, it buys just €1.15 — a roughly 12% loss of purchasing power against the single currency that the United Kingdom voted to step away from.

The picture sharpens against central and eastern European peers.

Sterling has tumbled over 20% against the Czech koruna and 13% against the Polish zloty, both economies that have absorbed manufacturing capacity and foreign direct investment that might otherwise have flowed to the UK.

Notably, the pound has barely held its ground against the Hungarian forint, eking out a 1.8% gain against one of Europe’s most volatile currencies.

Is there a turning point for UK markets?

The narrative is no longer one-way.

Since 2022, UK equities have outperformed US and global markets, driven by a strong value rotation and resilient dividends — without meaningful multiple expansion, according to Morningstar.

Valuations still reflect pessimism, however.

The UK trades at a 30% to 35% price-to-earnings discount to the US, with small and mid-caps the most depressed relative to history and developed peers.

Elevated mergers and acquisitions activity and record share buybacks suggest corporate insiders and overseas acquirers see value where public investors remain sceptical.

Some fund managers see this as the entry point.

Natalie Bell, fund manager on the Liontrust Economic Advantage team, said in a recent note that “valuations remain significantly depressed versus long run averages and other comparable markets,” adding that her team sees a broad-based valuation reversion opportunity for UK equities, particularly in small and micro-caps, even if the timing and magnitude is difficult to predict.

Others remain more cautious. Mislav Matejka, head of global and European equity strategy at JP Morgan, has argued that British equities often do well when investors turn bearish on everything else, given the FTSE 100’s defensive, liquid profile.

He sees the UK index rising 5% to 10% in 2026 but does not hold an overweight, on the view that the UK lacks a clear growth catalyst comparable to those emerging in Germany or China.

Ten years on from the vote, the question for international investors is no longer whether Brexit hurt UK markets — it is whether the resulting discount has now become the opportunity.

This is especially important if you’re planning to go abroad

UK holidaymakers still carrying an old red passport have been issued a summer travel warning.

If you’re planning a getaway this year, it’s essential to examine your passport before jetting off due to strict entry requirements in place across various countries. Many nations enforce rules demanding that your passport remains valid for an extra six months prior to your departure for international travel. Known as the ‘six-month validity rule’, many travellers using pre-Brexit red passports may find their documents lack the necessary time left on them.

Countless other destinations, including all those within the Schengen zone, operate a three-month passport validity requirement. UK travellers can therefore only enter these nations if their passport has at least three months’ validity remaining.

If you’re still in possession of a red passport, checking its expiry date is absolutely vital. Following Brexit, your passport must be less than 10 years old on the day you arrive in the EU, and its expiry date needs to be at least three months beyond your planned departure date from the EU.

Most individuals, quite reasonably, assume that an adult passport is valid for 10 years, but if yours was issued before October 1, 2018, additional months may have been tacked onto its expiry date if the previous passport was renewed before it had completely expired.

To find out whether your passport will remain valid for your trip, head to GOV.UK, look up your destination country and select ‘entry requirements’. Bear in mind that you are only permitted to stay for a maximum of 90 days within any six-month period, reports Wales Online.

Among the countries that enforce a six-month passport validity rule are the USA, Australia, Thailand, China, the United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia. If your passport doesn’t have sufficient time remaining, you will be unable to travel as planned.

easyJet issued an ‘important update’ earlier this month

easyJet has issued an alert to passengers travelling to more than 100 destinations with the airline after a major rule change that has come in post-Brexit.

In an “important update” issued earlier this month, easyJet warned queue times may be affected and said: “Airports across Europe may experience longer queues at passport control whilst the new European Entry/Exit System (EES) border checks are being completed. This will mean you may need to have your biometrics taken including your face and fingerprints scanned.”

Passengers are advised to plan travel to and through the airport, factoring in that they may have to queue for longer than previously. Anyone who needs to use Bag Drop should do so as soon as it opens, and travellers should make sure they have all necessary documents to hand.

easyJet is also urging people to go through security as early as possible and to head to the gate or boarding area as soon as it is announced. The travel operator further said there may be additional checks at passport control before your gate and added: “You may experience longer queues in your arrival airport”.

Full list of easyJet destinations under the new EES

• Ajaccio, Corsica (AJA) – France
• Akureyri (AEY) – Iceland
• Alicante (ALC) – Spain
• Almeria (LEI) – Spain
• Amsterdam (AMS) – Netherlands
• Athens (ATH) – Greece
• Barcelona (BCN) – Spain
• Bari (BRI) – Italy
• Basel (BSL) – Switzerland
• Bastia, Corsica (BIA) – France
• Berlin Brandenburg (BER) – Germany
• Biarritz (BIQ) – France
• Bilbao (BIO) – Spain
• Bordeaux (BOD) – France
• Brest Brittany (BES) – France
• Brindisi (BDS) – Italy
• Brussels Intl (BRU) – Belgium
• Budapest (BUD) – Hungary
• Burgas (BOJ) – Bulgaria
• Calvi, Corsica (CLY) – France
• Copenhagen (CPH) – Denmark
• Corfu (CFU) – Greece
• Costiera Amalfitana Salerno, Naples (QSR) – Italy
• Crete Chania (CHQ) – Greece
• Crete Heraklion (HER) – Greece
• Dubrovnik (DBV) – Croatia
• Dusseldorf (DUS) – Germany
• Evenes-Lofoten (EVE) – Norway
• Faro (FAO) – Portugal
• Figari, Corsica (FSC) – France
• Frankfurt International (FRA) – Germany
• Friedrichshafen (FDH) – Germany
• Fuerteventura (FUE) – Spain
• Geneva (GVA) – Switzerland
• Gibraltar (GIB) – Gibraltar
• Gran Canaria (LPA) – Spain
• Grenoble (GNB) – France
• Hamburg (HAM) – Germany
• Ibiza (IBZ) – Spain
• Innsbruck (INN) – Austria
• Kalamata (KLX) – Greece
• Kefalonia (EFL) – Greece
• Kittila (KTT) – Finland
• Kos (KGS) – Greece
• Krakow (KRK) – Poland
• La Coruña (LCG) – Spain
• La Rochelle (LRH) – France
• Lamezia (SUF) – Italy
• Lanzarote (ACE) – Spain
• Lille (LIL) – France
• Lisbon (LIS) – Portugal
• Ljubljana (LJU) – Slovenia
• Luxembourg (LUX) – Luxembourg
• Lyon (LYS) – France
• Madeira Funchal (FNC) – Portugal
• Madrid (MAD) – Spain
• Majorca Palma (PMI) – Spain
• Malaga (AGP) – Spain
• Malta (MLA) – Malta
• Marseille Provence (MRS) – France
• Menorca Mahon (MAH) – Spain
• Milan Linate (LIN) – Italy
• Milan Malpensa (MXP) – Italy
• Montpellier (MPL) – France
• Munich (MUC) – Germany
• Murcia Intl (RMU) – Spain
• Mykonos (JMK) – Greece
• Nantes (NTE) – France
• Naples (NAP) – Italy
• Nice (NCE) – France
• Oslo (OSL) – Norway
• Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) – France
• Paris Orly (ORY) – France
• Pisa (Tuscany) (PSA) – Italy
• Porto (OPO) – Portugal
• Porto Santo (PXO) – Portugal
• Prague (PRG) – Czech Republic
• Preveza (PVK) – Greece
• Pula (PUY) – Croatia
• Rennes (RNS) – France
• Reus (REU) – Spain
• Reykjavik Keflavik (KEF) – Iceland
• Rhodes (RHO) – Greece
• Rimini (RMI) – Italy
• Rome Fiumicino (FCO) – Italy
• Rovaniemi (RVN) – Finland
• Salzburg (SZG) – Austria
• Santa Cruz de la Palma (SPC) – Spain
• Santiago de Compostela (SCQ) – Spain
• Santorini (JTR) – Greece
• Sardinia Cagliari (CAG) – Italy
• Sardinia Olbia (OLB) – Italy
• Scandinavian Mountains (SCR) – Sweden
• Seville (SVQ) – Spain
• Sicily Catania (CTA) – Italy
• Sicily Lampedusa (LMP) – Italy
• Sicily Palermo (PMO) – Italy
• Skiathos (JSI) – Greece
• Sofia (SOF) – Bulgaria
• Split (SPU) – Croatia
• Strasbourg (SXB) – France
• Tenerife South (TFS) – Spain
• Thessaloniki (SKG) – Greece
• Toulouse (TLS) – France
• Tromsø (TOS) – Norway
• Turin (TRN) – Italy
• Valencia (VLC) – Spain
• Venice Marco Polo (VCE) – Italy
• Verona (VRN) – Italy
• Vienna (VIE) – Austria
• Zadar (ZAD) – Croatia
• Zante Zakynthos (ZTH) – Greece
• Zurich (ZRH) – Switzerland

The EES applies to 29 countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. The above list of airports are the Schengen area destinations you can fly to with easyJet from the UK, as of the airline’s website at the time of publication.