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Brexit has damaged UK's ability to protect Gibraltar, admits Hammond

“We will be less able to protect Gibraltar’s interests, not to defend territory, we can do that, but to protect Gibraltar’s interests if we are not in the European Union”

Britain’s ability to protect the interests of Gibraltar has been damaged by the EU referendum result, UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond on Monday. In an interview with ITV’s Robert Peston, Mr Hammond repeated a stark warning he first voiced when he visited Gibraltar ahead of the referendum campaign.

 “We will be less able to protect Gibraltar’s interests, not to defend Gibraltar’s territory, of course we can do that, but to protect Gibraltar’s interests if we are not in the European Union,” he said. “Gibraltar depends on thousands and thousands of Spanish workers crossing that border every day and any disruption to that flow will be extremely damaging to the Gibraltar economy.”

Mr Hammond was speaking after Spain’s acting Foreign Secretary, José Manuel García-Margallo, said on Friday that Spain would seek joint sovereignty over the Rock after the Brexit Rock. That statement was immediately rejected by both the British and Gibraltar governments.

On Friday, UK Europe Minister David Lidington reaffirmed Britain’s double-lock sovereignty commitment to Gibraltar. “I want to be absolutely clear,” he said in a message to Gibraltar. The United Kingdom will continue to stand beside Gibraltar.”

“We will never enter into arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another State against your wishes. Furthermore, the UK will not enter into a process of sovereignty negotiations with which Gibraltar is not content.”

However in the interview on ITV, Mr Hammond said the British Government’s cabinet, which was split over whether the country should vote to leave the European Union, would remain in place until a new prime minister was in office.

“Obviously a new prime minister will select his own cabinet and all of us will remain in office until that point and then the new prime minister will make his decision,” Hammond told ITV television in response to a question about whether finance minister George Osborne would remain in post.

He said British ministers would continue to attend EU council meetings until the UK had formally left the bloc, although he conceded they would be greeted differently.

“The reality is that Britain’s relationship with the European Union has changed, as of Friday morning, and we can’t change that,” he said. “We will be treated differently, we will be regarded differently. We can’t expect what we say to be treated in the same way as it would have been last Thursday.”

The Foreign Secretary also said the UK would resist pressure from Brussels and other EU capitals for a swift start to negotiations on its withdrawal from the bloc.

“There is no imperative upon us to serve the notice at any particular time. The referendum is an internal matter, the British Government as a member of the European Union is entitled to serve that notice, but the timing is entirely one for the UK to determine.”

Mr Hammond made clear that he wanted the future PM to make continued access to the European single market the primary objective of withdrawal negotiations, in a “trade-off” which must mean accepting limits on the UK’s ability to control immigration from the remaining 27 states.

It was “essential” to maintain single market access in order to continue to attract foreign investment without which Britain cannot “pay our way in the world”, he said, warning: “Loss of that access now would be catastrophic.” Foreign direct investment into the UK has already “all but dried up” as companies wait to see the consequences of the Brexit vote, the foreign secretary said.