How has the leave side addressed the issue of British citizens losing EU rights to retire in southern Europe without having to get a special non-EU citizen residence permit? I would think this would be an appealing argument for the remain side to appeal to older-middle aged voters.
They have not. I guess, they will be surpised when grandma shows on their doorstep asking for an attic to stay in.
Only the poorer English "expats" ergo the ones having a pension under 25 000€ annual will have to leave Spain. Of course many British people will likely say of course Spain will make a exception for them. Personally I doubt it, a interesting aspects you discover if you know any in non-British "expat" community in Spain, is how badly the Spanish talk about the British expats, you usual don't hear the same about the other groups, but for some reason the British is really unpopular. I don't know why, and neither did any of the Danish expats I know who have lived in retirement in Spain.
So people shouldn't be surprised if UK fail to reach a agreement with Spain about their expats.
I don't think the perception of local population towards British expats will play a big role in the eventuality of Brexit, even if they get a bad image -that is debatable; I have a Brit neighbour of elderly age and my other neighbours have a good opinion of him; it would depend on individuals or group behaviour, who knows-. It's more an economic question. On the Spanish side, one of the main issues would be the costs of using Public Healthcare by British expats. The counterpart is how much they contribute to national economy. On the British side, they will likely pursue free trade agreements with the EU or with its different countries. The City would be interested in the continuity of the free movement of workers -although they could say they don't need free movement for unskilled workers-. There are currently 200 thousand of Spaniard expats living in the UK. Some of them work in the NHS because the UK has a deficit in health professionals and Spain a surplus. I think Corbyn made recently a brief mention to 52 thousand of foreigners working in the NHS... In any case, the whole Brexit affair is a terrible mess. If it wins, we'll have another episode of the European Disorder saga.
