A Tangled Web

Diego Dodos



I see the Spanish Government is deeply upset about the forthcoming visit of UK Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, to Gibraltar to celebrate the 300th Anniversary of British rule. Quite why any respectable Gibraltarian would want to be part of a nation which changed its voting habits in response to a terrorist outrage is beyond me. However, we won't dwell on that sorry episode, or the repugnant efforts by New Labour to ram a system of joint sovereignty down the throats of Gibraltar's population in 2002.



We see a classic case of hypocrisy here. Spain maintains territorial enclaves on the Moroccan coast (Ceuta and Melilla) and has done so since 1580. The people of both towns want, overwhelmingly, to remain under the Spanish Crown. Morocco occasionally expostulates its verbal claim to the two areas, but keeps largely quiet on the subject for the sake of Spanish-Moroccan relations.



Spain, completely to the contrary, attempts to cause trouble over Gibraltar in a manner and frequency totally unbecoming of a supposedly modern democracy. It ignores the events that precipitated the Treaty of Utrecht which ceded Gibraltar to Britain 'in perpetuity'; it rides roughshod over the expressed wishes of Gibraltar's population; and attempts to deny the rights of the Colony to adequate representation in the EU. On two occasions (1967 and 2002) the people of 'The Rock' have voted to a man in favour of being British and, accordingly, Gibraltar has a modified right of self-determination in international law. The fact that Spain has never contemporaneously incorporated its 'claim' into the Constitution (the way the Irish did with Ulster) is proof that the claim would be contrary to international law and would be, moreover, judicially reviewable in the light of Spain's membership of the European Union. The Irish were able to get away with their offensive claim to a part of British territory because of the timing, the manner, and the insincerity of the constitutional clauses therein. The Spanish would not get such an easy ride.



Spain should grow up and stop acting like a spoilt child. Gibraltar is British and will remain so. Taking every opportunity to cause trouble over a colony which fundamentally rejects all efforts by Madrid to incorporate it into the wider Spanish polity will, in the longer term, exacerbate Anglo-Spanish relations without instilling a more favourable view of Spain in the eyes of everyday Gibraltarians.