Will Cameron abandon Gibraltar?

It looks as though Gibraltarians are having to steel themselves for another period of harrassment by the Spanish authorities. Not content with creating lengthy delays at the border crossing, Spain’s Foreign Minister, Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo, has unveiled plans to impose a €50 border fee, and threatens to close Spain’s airspace to flights heading to Gibraltar’s airport.

Gibraltar is one of fourteen British Overseas Territories,  and has its own local Government and relationship to Queen Elizabeth II. The UK Government is responsible for defence, foreign relations, internal security and the financial stability of the Territory. Most importantly, the sovereignty of Gibraltar depends on its relationship with the UK, since its sovereignty is vested in the British Government and not in that of Gibraltar itself. Gibraltarians have full British citizenship, just as Falkland Islanders, and Gibraltar belongs to Britain in the same way that the Falkland Islands do. It is an extension of our British national community.

David Cameron claims that he is “seriously concerned” by the situation at the border with Spain. But going by our previous experience of things which we have been told concern and even sicken Cameron, it is not clear that his personal feelings can be trusted to turn into actual policy. Indeed it is difficult to believe that he has any great attachment or commitment to Gibraltarian sovereignty, since he shows so little concern about the sovereignty of the British people.

Nor would he be alone were he to be considering how to cut Gibraltar adrift for the sake of closer ties with his European partners. Under the fascist Franco regime the territorial claims to Gibraltar were renewed with the insistence that the views of the British citizens on Gibraltar were of no account. In 1984 the Brussels Process was established between Britain and Spain, which included discussion of the sovereignty of the Territory. This was resisted by all of the opposition parties on Gibraltar. By 1987 the British Government was attempting to give Spain partial control of Gibraltar Airport, this led to a demonstration by all of the members of the local Government and 16,000 of the 29,000 population.

The British Government ignored the manifest wishes of the Gibraltarians and went ahead in signing an agreement which allowed Spain joint use of the airport. The local election in 1988 made a central issue of Gibraltarian sovereignty as expressed in the granting of authority over the airport to Spain, and the ruling party was crushed in the election, receiving only 29% of the vote, while the opposition received 58% of the vote.

The decades since then have witnessed a continuing process of betrayal of the wishes and aspirations of the Gibraltarians by successive British Governments. Conversations continued between Spain and Britain which excluded proper Gibraltarian representation, and in 2000 a demonstration of over half the population of Gibraltar protested at Spanish interference in their self-determination and in support of a declaration which..

“stated that the people of Gibraltar will never compromise, give up or trade their sovereignty or their right to self-determination; that Gibraltar wants good, neighbourly, European relations with Spain; and that Gibraltar belongs to the people of Gibraltar and is neither Spain’s to claim or Britain’s to give away”.

But in 2001 Britain and Spain announced that they were entering into fresh talks, sidelining the Gibraltarian Government again, despite the obvious resistance to such bilateral approaches. They were right to be concerned as in 2002 Jack Straw announced that it was the intention of the British Government to agree a shared sovereignty with Spain, which would come into force when they had convinced the Gibraltarians they needed to agree to it.

Gibraltar responded with a referendum in which 99% of the population rejected the “done deal” which the British Government had hoped to impose by wearing down local resistance. The Chief Minister also engaged in a comprehensive programme of speaking engagements and advertising in Britain itself which led to support for Gibraltarian sovereignty being supported by 80-90% of the British population.

Since then a series of trilateral meetings have taken place, but it seems quite reasonable to conclude that bilateral contacts continue to take place, and now that Gibraltar has become a serious international issue once more it seems unlikely that the Coalition will be wanting to complicate its immediate response by attending to the wishes of the Gibraltarians. If the Thatcher and Blair Governments could not be trusted then there is no compelling reason to believe that the Cameron one can be.

Take Nick Clegg for instance. His wife is a Spaniard who asserts the sovereignty of Spain over Gibraltar. His mother is Dutch, and his father is half-Russian. His commitment to Gibraltar might not be the most reliable. The Foreign Office has said..

Our differences with Spain on Gibraltar will be resolved by political means through our relationship as EU partners, not through disproportionate measures such as the border delays we have seen over the past week. We have many common interests with Spain and wish to continue to have a strong relationship at every level with the Government of Spain.

This is hardly a Churchillian defence of Gibraltar. Indeed as a response to the harrasment of Gibraltar it seems to suggest that getting on with Spain, within the EU, is of paramount importance. There is surely no need to resolve our differences with Spain, this has been the intention of British Governments over the last decade, and it essentially involves granting sovereignty over Gibraltar to Spain. What is required is an absolute statement of Gibraltar’s position with respect to Britain and its own self-determination.

We know that Tony Blair, with the support of his ministers and without the consent of the Gibraltarian people or Government was prepared, and was preparing, to provide Spain with joint-sovereignty over Gibraltar in 2002. Blair now says that he never intended Gibraltar to be “run by Spain”, but then no-one has suggested that. Do we believe that there are no Government ministers or civil servants continuing this same agenda?

What is more important in the long-term to a Europhile Government such as the Coalition, and to a Europhile Prime-Minister such as Cameron? Is it going to be preserving Gibraltarian independence in the face of all manner of obstacles? Or will it be more important to be develop closer relations with their EU partners? Will they sell Gibraltar for the sake of gaining support in the EU? The Government has much need of such support, and few allies.

If I was a Gibraltarian I would not trust a word that the British Government says about the sovereignty of Gibraltar. We have a great deal of experience in losing our own sovereignty in the UK. Will Cameron abandon Gibraltar? He will not be telling us that is his ambition, but if he can gain something significant from Spain in return for joint-sovereignty then I’d expect to see such moves becoming public very soon, disguised as a measured response to the present Spanish harassment of the island. I hope that Gibraltar has a back-up plan to take out the draw when it discovers it has been betrayed.