MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chief Minister Fabian Picardo National Day message: ‘Gibraltar will not blink’

Fabian Picardo, Gibraltar Chief Minister

”When we gather on Tuesday (September 10) to celebrate National Day it is important that we send a clear message. There are fundamental positions that we will never renounce and our resolve and determination remains as strong as ever.

 We need to remain focused on what matters to us and on what was important to previous generations of Gibraltarians. The Referendum we will commemorate on Tuesday was a defining moment. Our forefathers voted with their pencils by placing an X on the ballot paper knowing that things were going to get worse.

They voted to defy a military dictator in Spain who wanted to take over our country. That massive endorsement of British sovereignty led to the closure of the land frontier.
Yet our ancestors proudly stood up for the principles that mattered to them - just like they matter to us.

Today we too are standing up to protect the things that we hold dear to our heart. These are the very same issues of our proud past. And we need to understand that our decision now will have consequences, just like it did all those year ago.

In 1969 this was the petulant reaction of a dictator to the defense of our sovereignty on the part of the Gibraltarians of the day. Fifty five years later, we will face border queues while they scan our irises and take our fingerprints. Clearly, the border is not going to close.

So residents of Gibraltar will still be able to cross into Spain, which is now the European Union, but they will have go through more a more time consuming and bureaucratic process in order to go in and come back out.

But we need to stand up for what previous generations have defended and we must not surrender our birthright. Anyone who has the slightest bit of knowledge about the Gibraltarian psyche will understand that gunboats and queues will never change our position. The question of sovereignty is paramount, the symbols, ingredients and attributes of sovereignty matter too.

This is a line that your Government is not prepared to cross come what may. That is the repeated electoral mandate we have received from the people of Gibraltar. We will go forward together with the United Kingdom, whose decision to leave the European Union created this predicament, and we will cherish new friends in other countries too.

The choice was clear in 1967 and it is just as clear now. The issues were clear in 1967 and they are just as clear now. Gibraltar is not for sale. We will continue to defend our right to self-determination and we will survive.

Let me now be clear: the time may soon come when we all have to buckle in for a different kind of ride.

A ride with more turns and bumps than we may be accustomed to.

But we will be the ones who choose to take that road, we will be the ones who choose to take those turns and we will choose to ride those bumps.

We will have taken that road because we will not, as we never have, bow to threats, or pressure or harassment.

Those things only empower the Gibraltarians.

We will not be timid in the face of threats.

We will not buckle under pressure and we will respond to harassment with a strengthened resolve to do the right thing.

The right thing by our people

The right thing by history.

The right thing, for Gibraltar.

So this National Day, it is all the more important to send a clear message to all those who will be watching from the outside. Gibraltar will not blink.

Happy National Day!