MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Gibraltar celebrates National Day defiantly:“if Brexit means Brexit, then British means British”
Gibraltar's Chief Minister Fabian Picardo sent a firm message on Saturday, 10 September, the Rock's National Day, which was accompanied by strong support messages from the UK and a visiting delegation of MPs from all parties in Westminster Read full article
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Disclaimer & comment rulesBrexit might mean disruption and upheaval. But Spain can't even form a government.
Sep 12th, 2016 - 11:23 am - Link - Report abuse 0Just remember this before any future whinging about frontier queues.
Sep 12th, 2016 - 12:26 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I mean, they surely must know by now that its a 'one or the other' choice.
Some people think that Spain has a valid claim to Gibraltar. But then they might be wrong: https://www.academia.edu/10575180/Gibraltar_-_Some_Relevant_International_Law
Sep 12th, 2016 - 02:28 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Ouch!
@2 Vestige
Sep 12th, 2016 - 05:33 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Did you even read the article????
“if anyone thinks that we are going to sell our homeland for access to Europe, they don’t know the Gibraltarians,”
“We have told them that hell will freeze over before Gibraltar becomes Spanish.”
“Gibraltar will never be Spanish”
“We have told them that no means no.”
“if Brexit means Brexit, then British means British. No means no. Never means never. Gibraltar is British forever.”
They have clearly made their choice, what part of NO, do you not understand???
Vestige: “But you chose not to give money to the mob! You can't complain later when they burn your house down!”
Sep 12th, 2016 - 06:29 pm - Link - Report abuse 0defiantly:“if Brexit means Brexit, then British means British”
Sep 12th, 2016 - 07:21 pm - Link - Report abuse 0defiantly:“if Brexit means Brexit, then British means British”
defiantly:“if Brexit means Brexit, then British means British”
Says it all really, does it not,
And this can go for the Falkland's as well as Gibraltar and the rest,
and Spain Argentina and all the rest of the Anti bash the British
Can all soddy offy ,
British, we don't always win, but come a close second.
So they say.......
Vestige
Sep 12th, 2016 - 08:04 pm - Link - Report abuse 0There'll always be border queues because Spain is powerless to do anything else.
4 - yes Pugol I did read the article. Did you even read my comment.
Sep 12th, 2016 - 10:11 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Its a comment more on how some Gibraltarians are illogically reacting to the consequence of their very own choice.
I understand they say 'no'.
However what some there don't seem to understand is that the choice of 'no' comes with inevitable consequences.
I'm not criticizing their choice itself, I'm criticizing those who would choose an option and later complain about it.
Like someone choosing to jump in a pool and then complain 'waaah Im wet, I don't like being wet, I shouldn't have to be wet'.
If you dare say 'well then dont jump in the pool' you get the soap boxy 'I shall exercise my freedom of human rights to jump in my pool...etc etc braveheart-esque monologues' of mercopress.
And a promise to always jump in the pool.
Few months later .... 'waah wet, its outrageous'
5 - not really, there's no law saying Spain must be a friendly neighbor. Spains not actively damaging anything belonging to Gibraltar, so your analogy fails.
Even when you take the most pro-British stance possible theres still no subsection to be found in Utrecht that says '...and we'll be nice to you too'.
Gib has zero entitlement to dictate access to Spain (esp, post Brexit).
You buy a plot with no road access ... your problem.
7 - Oh Spain is powerful enough to do a whole lot more, in a heartbeat, but unlike certain whingey types in Gibraltar it chooses one option and lives with it.
What can the whiners realistic expectation actually be ?
Now I know theres a lot of highly witty 'spain to stop acting like a child' type answers to regurgitate, but I mean in realistic terms.
What can really be expected - land rightly or wrongly forcibly taken, parked next door to previous owner, on a peninsula, only land access via said previous owner, history of animosity, refusal.
Do the same on anywhere and you'll get the same result.
If you want the rose, you accept the thorns too - whining about it is utterly illogical.
@8 Vestige
Sep 13th, 2016 - 04:45 pm - Link - Report abuse 0The fact their logic escapes you is no real surprise, it seems to me they are only too well aware of the consequences here.
That does not mean they are going to lie down and just except either Spanish blackmail or Spanish retaliation, for refusing to be blackmailed.
Of course Spain has the right to close it border once the UK is out of the EU.
However a blockade is technically an act of war, certainly not the actions of a supposedly friendly NATO ally, in fact completely unacceptable from a NATO country.
Not to mention the British have the right to retaliate, and will. As the economics of it are that Spain can only lose and lose badly, frankly I doubt they will try any such action.
Don’t forget the Spanish are going to veto any EU discussions including Gib.
We shall soon see how badly they get their fingers burned with that one.
With the impending large drop in EU funding, where Spain is almost certainly going to have to become a net contributor to the EU, they are going to need all the tourists and foreign investment they can get.
Talking about Owners,
Sep 13th, 2016 - 06:47 pm - Link - Report abuse 0did not Spain take its land or some of it from the moors,
did they not occupy Spain for over 400 years,
I could well be wrong, but worth a punt...
@8 Vestige
Sep 13th, 2016 - 07:01 pm - Link - Report abuse 0You're right, there's no requirement for Spain to be nice. But I think it's reasonable to complain when Spain is actively trying to harm Gibraltar, or invading their territorial waters.
Besides which they were breaking EU laws by obstructing the border. Something that won't be true for much longer; soon they will be able to do a lot worse.
Perhaps I should alter my mob analogy. They park a giant truck across your driveway so you can't get to work, and constantly tresspass in your garden. They also threaten to cut your phone lines and block your mail. Still no reason for complaint?
@8 - Vestige:
Sep 14th, 2016 - 09:41 am - Link - Report abuse 0We're not “whining” at all, just pointing out a fact: Gibraltar is British, and will remain British. Margallo doesn't seem to understand this and seems to think that he can either bully us into submission, or buy it. Not a cat in hell's chance.
The issue really comes down to what Spain is trying to achieve, and how this will play across the EU.
Margallo's aim is to deny Gibraltarians access not only on a trading level, but actual physical access to Europe. If the post-Brexit EU/UK agreements were to exclude Gib, as he hopes, then we can be excluded from visa systems and he would once more be able to “lock us in” to Gibraltar, as his idol Franco did (the border was closed from 1969 to 1985).
Do you think the other EU states will buy into this when it is made clear to them that this is what Spain's goal is - to lock in 32,000 people, cut phone lines, destroy their economy and so forth? Do you think the German government, with memory of the effects of the Berlin Wall, will agree to this course of action?
We know Margallo has diplomats in every EU capital trying to persuade them that Gibraltar must be excluded from UK negotiations - but to do so is to go against their self-interest.
Still. It shows the petty levels to which Spain is prepared to stoop.
There is no blackmail, there is no 'truck across YOUR driveway'.
Sep 14th, 2016 - 12:31 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Theres a truck on their own land.
Being serious, what does Spain actually owe Gibraltar.
(also, should the closure of a border constitute a blockade when theres sea access ? )
Then after 300 years I think it's time to finish the siesta and do something then Vestige.....
Sep 14th, 2016 - 04:28 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Guess not.
Close the border. Been done before and still British. What's the definition of insanity again? Oh that's right, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Hopefully Spain tries something new. I could do with a laugh.
@13 Vestige
Sep 14th, 2016 - 05:10 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Closure of the land border, threats and repeated incursions into territorial waters, are at the very least hostile acts which invite retaliation.
We don’t have long to wait and we shall see if the Spanish have the cajones to try and carry any of this through.
sceptic64 is right, what the Spanish are peddling is not going to get a sympathetic hearing in many, if any, EU capitals. What they are suggesting is completely unacceptable to modern Europeans, effectively forcibly annexing a territory and its population.
Not least because if you look at a map of eastern Europe now and then in 1939, a lot of people are living on the wrong side of 70 year old borders, never mind 300 year old ones.
14 - You should be so lucky to score the p.r. of a fully closed border.
Sep 14th, 2016 - 08:18 pm - Link - Report abuse 0My guess - Gib will end up paying, fairly steeply, to come and go.
People, data, businesses, goods - all cross border taxed.
Nice and non-headline worthy. Won't stir up much from an electorate who voted for Brexit. Their own choice, etc.
Also won't stir up much talk of a trade war with Spain, a.k.a the EU.
London wouldn't want such talk in a 45/55 Scotland anyway.
Theres a lot of native, and voting, Gibraltarians living on the Spanish side too.
Good old Nigel.
Yes yes yes Gibraltar will pay.
Sep 14th, 2016 - 11:15 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Blah blah blah.
Still won't be Spanish.
Yeah, thats initially true.
Sep 15th, 2016 - 10:02 am - Link - Report abuse 0But if a toll happens (as I suspect it will), Gibraltar will be more like a paying tenant than unwelcome foreigner.
A very significant move in the right direction, well, from the Spanish perspective.
Brexit means Brexit, then British means British
Sep 15th, 2016 - 11:47 am - Link - Report abuse 0And sod the greedy thieving Spanish.
Still won't be Spanish, Vestige.
Sep 15th, 2016 - 01:02 pm - Link - Report abuse 0There's no proof that any action will lead to Spanish sovereignty. Indeed empirical evidence shows that Spanish belligerence only entrenches Britishness.
Not a single action by Spain has created any improvement in the liklihood of it gaining sovereignty.
For 300 years! When is this “initially” coming to an end?
Your move! LOL
@18 Vestige
Sep 15th, 2016 - 06:14 pm - Link - Report abuse 0It will never happen, tolls can go both ways, like a tax levied on holidays in Spain.
Or Spanish exports to the UK, Spanish investments in the UK.
In any economic conflict, which would be the inevitable result of any such Spanish action, Spain can only lose and lose heavily.
Like I said, we don’t have long to wait before we see if they have got the bottle for it.
Paper Dragon.
20 - You put a lot of hope in a theory of things staying the same because they've been a certain way for a certain time, and so can't possibly change.
Sep 15th, 2016 - 08:02 pm - Link - Report abuse 0As you do this MP's and representatives for Gibraltar are busy desperately scrambling to find a way out of a new type of dilemma which has massive change written all over it.
The chief minister of the enclave describing the current situation as an ''existential threat''. Strong words from the territory's highest office - very rarely heard.
Larger political issues, the EU, and world and civil wars have seen to it that the initially sparsely populated, little developed, Gibraltar remained a marginal issue throughout a great part of that 300 years. No longer.
21 - Your stopping exports of an EU member suggestion is a good example of your wrong thinking on this issue. Don't have me go into why.
And yes, hopefully we won't have to wait long to see if Spain has the bottle.
Article 50 must be triggered at some point - on that issue the G.British electorate was very clear.
To not do so would be to undermine GB's entire democratic referendum system.
Back in Gib, expect some small scale construction works on the road leading to the fence the very next morning. And a re-designation of some sort, probably a semi-state commercial ownership.
Reasonably pesky charges .... well, initially.
@Vestige:
Sep 16th, 2016 - 12:14 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“But if a toll happens, Gibraltar will be more like a paying tenant than unwelcome foreigner. A very significant move in the right direction, well, from the Spanish perspective.”
How? In what possible way would this sort of juvenile behaviour further your 'sovereignty' cause? In case you don't remember, you tried this for 16 years. A total blockade - no food, no medical supplies. People dying in hospital because there was no oxygen.
Did that make Gibraltarians cave in and plead to become Spanish?
No. It made them despise you. There's a whole generation who will never, ever trust Spain- and Margallo is making sure that a new generation feels the same.
As to “The chief minister of the enclave describing the current situation as an ''existential threat''. - economically it is. It will have serious repercussions on our financial services industry.
On our remaining British? No change.
”Back in Gib, expect some small scale construction works on the road leading to the fence the very next morning.“ - you really are a sad little man.
In reality, all that will happen is that the border will slow down - again. If visas are needed especially - but that's an EU decision, not Spain's. But it is Spain that will lose out as 25% of the GDP of the surrounding area comes from Gibraltar.
”My guess - Gib will end up paying, fairly steeply, to come and go.”
Data - we now have alternative lines that don't go through Spain, by the way. So forget that.
People? I live and work in Gibraltar. All this will do is prevent me spending money in Spain. As to my wife? How are you going to prevent an EU citizen entering the EU? Which is why your empty threats are solely directed at the local population.
No - those most affected will be the x-border workers. Spain's own people. Once again, you're going to make them pay for your pathetic, 19th century gunboat diplomacy.
You are an anachronism, about as fit to inhabit the 21st century as a dinosaur. And less intelligent.
@22 Vestige
Sep 16th, 2016 - 06:16 pm - Link - Report abuse 0We won’t be an EU member, and perfectly entitle to impose reciprocal tariffs on anyone we choose, especially where there is no trade agreement in place.
If there is a trade agreement, it will include Gibraltar.
Article 50 will be triggered be in no doubt of that, probably in the new year although they won’t get serious until after the elections in Germany and France.
Meanwhile Spain will try and persuade EU countries that they should be allowed to blockade and annex Gibraltar, Crimea style!!
The closer to the Russian border you go, the less enthusiastic they are going to be about that idea.
No, the Spanish are on to a “hiding for nothing” there. For political, ideological and economic reasons few if any countries are going to support them.
“Pesky charges” With 10,000 Spaniards working in or for Gibraltar, that is going to be popular.
Even before a reciprocal charge is imposed.
Paper Dragon.
23 sceptic64
Sep 16th, 2016 - 06:31 pm - Link - Report abuse 0[ just an idea ]
seeing as you live on Gibraltar,
if you look face on at Gibraltar from the sea,
is it entirely poss. to imaging cutting a trench between Gibraltar and Spain,
thus making it an island,
and down the right hand side of Gibraltar, face on, build a new runway , longer and better than the one you already have.
just a thought.
So no proof at all Vestige!
Sep 16th, 2016 - 06:43 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Just because it has been the same I shouldn't expect it to stay the same?
Gibraltar still is a marginal issue. It is only in Spain that it is inflated to something larger than it need be. There is no issue. Gibraltar like the rest of the UK is currently adapting to a future outside the EU.
Gibraltar is already outside the EU customs union and VAT area and is exempted from the Common Agricultural Policy and does not form part of the Schengen Area.
These are all things that Spain has used against Gibraltar ALREADY. What more can it do? Once Gibraltar is outside the EU it will enjoy whatever access to movement and the market that is negotiated between the EU and the UK, this may or may not include specific provisions for Gibraltar.
What you keep missing is that even with Brexit, there is no increase in support for union with Spain. The people there do not feel less British nor do they wish to alter their sovereignty status.
Spain can do whatever it wants on its side of the border. It can charge exorbitant tolls to use the road, it can create delays that last for days, it can even blockade Gibraltar - all after the UK leaves the EU.
However none of this will change the sovereignty of Gibraltar. As is now the norm, it will only further alienate Gibraltans and poison the well.
You are right though, the world is changing. And with the Internet and cheap air travel and new technologies, Gibraltar is better able to withstand total disconnection with Spain better than at anytime in its history.
It is Spain that should be worried if Brexit is a success and worse, if Scottish independence eventuates because both events will shake the EU to its core.
Spain has no leverage and its pathetic actions over the years have just proven again and again how impotent it is when it comes to Gibraltar.
Spain will be lucky to remain,,, in one piece.
Sep 16th, 2016 - 07:39 pm - Link - Report abuse 0#26 Skip:
Sep 17th, 2016 - 12:15 am - Link - Report abuse 0“What you keep missing is that even with Brexit, there is no increase in support for union with Spain. The people there do not feel less British nor do they wish to alter their sovereignty status.”“
100% correct. In or out of the EU - we're British.
”Spain can do whatever it wants on its side of the border. It can charge exorbitant tolls to use the road, it can create delays that last for days, it can even blockade Gibraltar - all after the UK leaves the EU. However none of this will change the sovereignty of Gibraltar. “
Not a cat in hell's chance. It is more likely that we will be invaded by space aliens from Alpha Centauri, to be honest.
”As is now the norm, it will only further alienate Gibraltans and poison the well.“
Gibraltarians - not Gibraltans. Otherwise you sum it up perfectly.
”It is Spain that should be worried if Brexit is a success and worse, if Scottish independence eventuates because both events will shake the EU to its core. Spain has no leverage and its pathetic actions over the years have just proven again and again how impotent it is when it comes to Gibraltar.”
Vestige: I'll bet you my house that Catalunya will leave your Castilian Empire before Gibraltar submits to your fake claim.
I give it two years before your empire starts collapsing around your ears.
Look towards your own problems before your dreams of empire overtake you.
No need to get personal sceptic. I understand your anger, its an anger that white S.A farmers would have had in the 90's, similar again to that of English plantation owners in 50's Kenya.
Sep 17th, 2016 - 10:55 pm - Link - Report abuse 0In one sense at least you're frustration is very understandable, how could you not think of yourself as the good guy and anyone opposing you as the bad guy.
But I think you should take a little time and reflect on how Gib came to be, what the local inhabitants would have felt about being booted out, and how any proud people or nation would react. Breath, and take a minute to do that.
Maybe if it helps you could imagine Germany hanging on to a channel isle by quirk of good fortune. Its implanted volk having their own demokratenreferendumzeit with a 98% pro Germany result. I'm sure they too would complain of nasty bullying British who won't leave them in peace.
I concede that the Gib's do have some rights, but not all rights.
That seems to be your own expectations, a peaceful co-existence on an enclave taken by force. Rarely realistic anywhere on the planet.
Presently Picardo is down to talk of 'reverse Greenland' plans to help avert what I personally see as highly likely. A change in the tide.
A toll is not the end of Gibraltar, I wasn't alluding to that.
Rather its a development that will be used to gradually leverage Gib's internal politics, not an all out assault on sovereignty - no need to get so preachy.
I suspect it will be less 'sudden blockade' and more 'lets check the rent book - have you dropped any blocks this month'.
I also doubt UK/EU negotiations will help - quite likely that even with the best contract available Spain will just go ahead and do it anyway, at the right time, multi billion euro trade not stopping the bus to fix a squeak.
Ask a producer in the UK - priorities, sympathies.
I don't think the world will side with Gib, and that given the rejected opportunity to share an enclave taken by force, and brexit, that a toll is very fair.
#29: I'm not getting personal - just pointing out some facts. Gibraltarians will not be 'persuaded' into selling sovereignty by Spain, and so playing silly buggers at the border isn't going to change anything - after all, you tried it before and it only succeeded in increasing suspicion of anything your Government suggests.
Sep 19th, 2016 - 08:54 am - Link - Report abuse 0And your 'colonial' similes are ridiculous. In both apartheid SA and 50s Kenya there was a small, colonial minority oppressing the local populace. That's not the case here, is it? So it's a ridiculous comparison.
“But I think you should take a little time and reflect on how Gib came to be, what the local inhabitants would have felt about being booted out” - it was 300 years ago. And it was before the Castilian army marched into Barcelona and flattened it, subjugating the Catalans. Double standards, eh? And how do you think the former inhabitants of Ceuta and Melilla 'feel about being booted out'?
The rest of your post is equally ridiculous. If you impose a toll, there will be serious repercussions on Spain, and most likely not just from the UK. You seem to think the rest of the democratic EU states will be happy to allow this behaviour from a member state - I suggest you look at Article 7.
30 - Even if they were facts they'd be personal facts.
Sep 19th, 2016 - 03:03 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Yes, Gibraltar will be persuaded into gradually selling small portions of sovereignty if and when Spain goes ahead with a toll, if not overtly.
You can't just conveniently deny such leverage out of existence, it will influence deep into the fabric of Gibraltars politics - to boardroom decisions, and small changes in plans and official attitudes.
On the surface the individual citizen can of course put on a panto that everything is the same, but back at the drawing board theres an option scribbled out.
The party who can keep the toll down will tend to get into power just a little quicker.
Concrete blocks, etc, WILL cost the individual voter, from their OWN individual pockets - so they better think hard if its worth it.
If you think accords and paperwork are the final say on what happens in the real world I suggest you google the terms 'treaty', 'breach' , 'non-compliance' and 'legal-quagmire'.
EU moves slowly, even more so when you have its ear. Years not months.
UK won't want to hear of repercussions. Too trivial in the face of international trade. Want to stop those trade billions, because of a toll in Andalusia.
Oh absolutely - fuck the UK economy, theres a little territory thats not entirely satisfied by a toll that resulted from the (most holy of holies) Br--it.
The tories will surely help - top priority.
Brexit let the cat out the bag. Good luck getting it back in. UK voting folk pride themselves on taking responsibility for their actions.
Ceuta and Melilla while interesting in some ways won't help.
I find their mention amusing every time - maybe Spain is indeed a hypocritical prick. What of it.
Really grates to realise that everything your country says is simply lies and double standards; that you can make empty threat after empty threat; that you can spend millions running around the EU peddling your bullshit, and
Sep 19th, 2016 - 10:24 pm - Link - Report abuse 0at the end of the day
it won't make the blindest bit of difference because - really - you don't matter.
32 - 98% of Gib voted stay.
Sep 20th, 2016 - 02:08 am - Link - Report abuse 0Commenting for this story is now closed.
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