One of the best tweets occasioned by Brexit was sent not long after the polls closed on the day of the referendum:

The speed of the count was not the only impressive electoral feat of the Gibraltar vote that night. Ninety-six percent of those who voted in Gibraltar wanted the UK to remain in the EU. This was by far the highest support for EU membership in any area that voted in the referendum.

But what are the consequences for Gibraltar of that referendum’s overall vote for Brexit? Has the vote for Leave placed the Rock in a hard place?

Gibraltar is an “overseas territory” of the UK of about two and half square miles. It has no natural resources and until fairly recently did not even have a secure supply of drinking water. The population is just over 30,ooo. The UK is still responsible for Gibraltar’s external relations and defence but little else: the territory has its own government, its own tax system, its own currency and its own legal system.

But the territory has a gross domestic product of about £1.5bn. In terms of GDP per head, Gibraltar is one of the most affluent places in the world. And that is primarily because of its relationship with the UK and the EU and a thriving services sector linked to the European single market. Brexit puts all this at risk, as last week’s House of Lords report sets out.

When the UK joined the EU in 1973, Gibraltar became part of the Union. From 2006, after a court case, Gibraltarians got to vote for the European parliament (as part of the south-west England constituency). And so, as EU citizens, they got to vote in the referendum. As an overseas territory Gibraltar is classified differently from the UK “Crown Dependencies” of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, which have never been members of the EU and so did not vote in the referendum.

Gibraltar has developed a distinct and complex relationship with the EU. It is part of the single market, and it gives effect to the freedom of movement of people, services and capital. Some 60 per cent of its law is based on EU law, and the government is proud of its record of being up-to-date with implementation of Union laws. Few if any other members of the EU are as conscientious as Gibraltar when it comes to taking EU law seriously.

But Gibraltar is not a participant in the common commercial policy (the customs union), the common agricultural policy or the common fisheries policy. There is no EU obligation to levy VAT. There is no freedom of movement of goods. And, like the UK, Gibraltar is not part of the Schengen area for “borderless” movement of people nor part of the eurozone. Gibraltarians are good Europeans but on their own terms.

At the referendum there are two broad but interlinked reasons why Gibraltar was so emphatic in its support for UK membership of the EU, and these reasons in turn indicate the two broad but interlinked problems that Brexit now presents for the territory.

The first reason is that the highly successful Gibraltarian economic model is highly dependent on EU membership. Although 90 per cent of the territory’s trade in financial services is (nominally) with the UK, these services — notably insurance and online gambling – are in turn reliant on Britain having access to the single market. The majority of the workforce that produces these services daily cross the border from Spain (when Spain lets them). The economy of Gibraltar is an exemplar of EU cross-border economics, both in terms of inputs and outputs. Gibraltar is rich because its relationship with the EU and UK make it so.

The second reason is the country across the border: Spain. Gibraltar was a Spanish possession for the 250 or so years between 1462 and 1704. The territory was formally ceded to the British in 1713. Spain considers it as Spanish even though for most of Gibraltar’s history it has been either Moorish or British.

One primary aim of Spanish foreign policy is to regain at least some element of sovereignty over the territory of Gibraltar, if not complete sovereignty then joint sovereignty. And without exaggeration, the means by which it wants to obtain that policy goal has often been by intimidation. This was especially the case for the five years after 2010. In 2014, the normally restrained House of Commons foreign affairs committee reported that the “behaviour of Spain toward Gibraltar was unacceptable” and amounted to “a campaign of harassment and intimidation”.

The documented detail in that report was extraordinary, especially when one considers that Spain and the UK are (supposedly) close EU and Nato allies. Gibraltar was subject to ongoing coercion and interference by land, sea and air. The land border could be subject to sudden delays of up to six hours; the territorial waters saw regular violations of sovereignty by Spanish police and other vessels; and the Spanish government reneged on its previous agreement about Gibraltar’s airport and actively obstructed the territory’s attempts to be part of the EU aerospace regime.

So frequent and troublesome were the Spanish threats to Gibraltar that between 2010 and 2014 the Spanish ambassador in London was summoned so regularly to the UK foreign office that only the Syrian ambassador was summoned more often. As such a diplomatic summons is drastic in any circumstances, for it to happen routinely with a fellow EU member state was remarkable. No other EU ambassador was summoned once in the same period.

To an outsider, this Spanish aggression toward Gibraltar looks not only spiteful and petty but also counter-productive. Gibraltar is essential to the adjacent Spanish economy of Andalucia, and the territory accounts for about a quarter of Andalucia’s GDP. The vast majority of the thousands of cross-border workers are from the local Spanish region. So when Spain hurts Gibraltar, it also hurts a part of itself that otherwise has an unemployment rate of 35 per cent. But the Madrid politicians seem not to care.

More recently, however, with the new Spanish foreign minister Alfonso Dastis (a former diplomat), Spanish policy seems to have become more conciliatory. But only last year his predecessor said that in the event of a vote for Brexit, the Spanish government would re-assert its sovereignty demands the “next day”. There is no inherent reason why Spanish policy cannot take an intimidation turn again. There just has to be a change of whim in Madrid.

And this is the importance of the EU for Gibraltar. Although Spain from time to time was able to use the EU institutions to advance its claims on the territory, in general the EU has provided the means by which Gibraltar could check Spain. Before Spain joined the EU’s predecessor in 1985 there had been a hard border; since 1985 there has been (on the whole) a collaborative and free-flowing border to the mutual benefit of Gibraltar and the adjacent Spanish region, made possible by the EU and its institutions.

In 2013-2015, for example, it was the three formal visits by the European Commission that ensured the excessive delays at the Spanish border were brought to an end. The Gibraltarians also have the last resort of taking enforcement action against Spain at the European Court of Justice to allow the free movement of EU people over the border. Again and again, EU law and policy provided Gibraltar with a legitimate basis for checking intimidating Spanish practices.

Brexit, therefore, does not so much create new problems for Gibraltar as remove the way older problems were being solved. (This is comparable, of course, to how mutual EU membership of both the UK and the Republic of Ireland proved convenient get-arounds for knotty border issues in respect of Northern Ireland.) With the European Commission and the European Court of Justice out of the way, there may soon be no practical ways to address a return by Spain to intimidation and obstruction.

The Gibraltarian government is seeking to be upbeat about Brexit. The chief minister makes the valid point that, the occasional Spanish intimidation aside, the territory shows how a free-flowing border can bring prosperity even when there is no common commercial policy. And the UK in turn has stated that it will ensure Gibraltar’s continued access to the UK market when the EU relationship is removed between Britain and its overseas territory.

For the tourist, Gibraltar’s elaborate attachments to the UK – from Winston Churchill Avenue to the copycat police helmets – can make it seem like a Britain in miniature. But the post-1985 history of Gibraltar shows that economic interdependence and a collaborative border can (generally) be possible without a customs union. It also show that there will be many new and revived inconveniences once there is no longer access to EU law and institutions. In this way, Gibraltar is also perhaps an example of Brexit in miniature.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2018. All rights reserved.
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Although David Allen Green writes of Spanish "violation of sovereignty" of Gib territorial waters, Spain has always explicitly stated it does not recognise any such territorial waters. I believe the Treaty of Utrecht is silent on that matter. 

Given the long, long history (8 or more sieges of Gibraltar) of struggle before the Spanish kingdom finally wrested control from the Moors of the Gabal al-Tariq, no one should be surprised at the strength of Spanish national feeling.  Snubbing Scotland (if they ever get to, or wish to, do) is way down the list of priorities: Gibraltar is at or near the top.

Why not Gibraltar as an independent state within the EU?  Luxembourg but with better weather.

@Divas @/dev/nul If I was Spain, I'd regard unplugging Gibraltar from the UK as success enough for now.  Then I'd see whether charm could accomplish what threats haven't.  If they've waited 300 years to get the rock back what's the hurry?

By the same token if I were the EU27 I'd pre - agree sweetheart deals for Scotland, NI and Wales to join the EU in the event of them leaving the UK.  I know Wales voted Leave, but it might change it's mind if NI and Scotland left the UK.

I'd also try and engage directly with Remain voters over the head of the UK government.

Integration is typically easier than divorce, so England could be tied up over the divorce for years while the EU would absorb the "new" members fairly easily.

Also, if the UK government says "we're not paying our debts to the EU" then, on the basis that what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, Scotland / NI / Wales could leave the UK and rejoin the EU debt free, leaving England to whistle.

@/dev/nul

With regard to Spain and Gib, the carrot would never work. (It is simply not what people want. Distinct identity that is very different to Spain, but is not defined based upon simply being not-Spain either). That said carrot behaviour would be very welcome - Gib seeks to have very good close friendly relations.

But the mentality from Spain is the stick sadly. She is really concerned about her own breakaway provinces.

If the Spanish are ever successful in establishing "joint sovereignty", I trust England will enjoy similiar joint sovereignty over Pas de Calais ('owned' by England 1346 - 1558).....or everyone could just grow up and move on.....

@LumbagoWhat you don't understand is that Calais is an integral part of France in the same way that Gibraltar is an integral part of Spain.

The Britons have nothing to do there. And they dont have nothing to do in Malvinas, NI, Chagos and the rest of their anachronic colonies in foreign countries.

Hai capito adesso?


Perhaps you could define "integral" without resorting to geographical land mass (an argument by which China are laying claim to the S China Sea in contravention of international law).  My point was simply that, for as long as the Falkand Islanders, the Gibralterians etc wish to remain subject to HM Gov then, frankly foreign powers have no right to tell them they're wrong and should be throwing off the colonial (really, still ?) yoke in favour of subjugation to Argentina, Spain etc... 

Mr Green really needs to check his historical claims. The territory of Spain existed thousands of years before the Arabs (Moors) came anywhere near the Iberian Peninsula (let alone the place on the Iberian Peninsula that came to be known as Gibraltar). The Latin term Hispania derived from the Basque Ezpanna was used during Antiquity as a geographical name for the entire Iberian Peninsula. The Arabs (Moors) like the British and their transplanted populations are not indigenous to the Iberian Peninsula.

In the last years of the 12th century the whole Iberian Peninsula, Muslim and Christian, became known as "Spain" (EspañaEspanya or Espanha) and the denomination "the Five Kingdoms of Spain" became used to refer to the Muslim Kingdom of Granada and the Christian kingdoms of AragonCastilePortugal and Navarre.

Between 1309 and 1462 Gibraltar was besieged eight times by Spanish forces and changed hands four times. Spanish forces retook Gibraltar in 1462, and it remained under Spanish control until 1704. Significantly no official border was ever established or designated between the territory of Gibraltar and Spain.

In any case, irrespective of the history of Gibraltar, the fact remains that, to this day, the UN lists Gibraltar as a territory that needs to be decolonised by the UK. If you're confused about this just go to the UN website. No attempts at obfuscation can negate this critical fact. 

When Spain declonoises North Africa, then we can talk. And then there is that tricky issue of self determination.

Besides, for a territory to have a name is not for it to be a state. The Romans gave Britain its name but anyone with an ounce of education would know that the UK only came into existence with the union of Scotland and England just a few centuries ago.

@Adam Leichman Unlike Gibraltar, Ceuta and Melilla are not considered to be colonial enclaves by the UN. Ceuta and Melilla pre-exist the creation of the Moroccan State – they were Spanish hundreds of years before Morocco existed. In contrast, Gibraltar was colonised by the UK while it was part of the Kingdom of Spain.

Unlike Gibraltar and the Falklands, Ceuta and Melilla are not listed on the UN list of territories awaiting decolonisation and thus the UN’s delisting criteria applying to colonial enclaves is not relevant to them.

This is the reason why the UK tries each year to convince the UN to delist Gibraltar from its list of territories that must be decolonised. Unfortunately, for the UK, the UN has steadfastly refused to do this. Instead, the UN has consistently agreed with Spain’s position that the UK must decolonise Gibraltar by transferring the territory back to Spain as stipulated under clause X of the Treaty of Utrecht.

@FurtherBeyond 

The obstruction at the UN is Spain. The UN charter supersedes the constraints of Utrecht. 

To argue for Utrecht to be enforced today (against the wishes of the people) is also to argue for Jews to be persecuted. Funny how Spain doesn't demand that clause be enforced! Yet article 10 is just as out of date, and totally superseded by other things Spain has signed.

@FurtherBeyond @Adam Leichman  

The advent of social media and 'below the line' commentary on articles on the internet, has led to the growth of something in China called the 50 Cent Party (or Army), so called because that is what these state-sponsored internet commentators (or trolls) are paid by the powers-that-be for each post defending the motherland over human rights, be it over democracy, Tibet, Taiwan or Hong Kong.

By contrast, Spain's equivalent (which is also Argentina's) over the past four years seems to consist of someone usually using the pseudonym 'FurtherBeyond', who is such a predictable and obsessive bore that one wonders if he (or she) is a false flag operation trying to make Madrid (or Buenos Aires) look bad, given that the language used is identical, as if posts are copied and pasted over and over again.

These usually consist of references to the UN Special Committee on Decolonisation, a body so pedantic that it censures New Zealand for failing to get enough people on the tiny island of Tokelau (population 1500) to vote for free association, and claims that Spain has no reason to take the issue of Gibraltar to the International Court of Justice because it won 'hands down' in the UN General Assembly.  

That argument was once used by the Indonesian Foreign Minister in the 1990s when East Timor, then under Indonesian occupation, was still recognised by the UN as a non-self-governing territory under Portuguese administration. In an interview with the Financial Times, he said that 'we have the votes in the UN General Assembly, and [the Portuguese] know it'. History, however, was to proved differently. 

Another bit of self-contradiction by FurtherBeyond is the analogy with Hong Kong and Macau, which China had removed from the list of non-self-governing territories on the grounds that they were not colonies at all, but parts of its territory under British and Portuguese occupation. If Gibraltar and the so-called 'Falklands-Malvinas' are parts of Spain and Argentina under British occupation, why don't they have them removed from the list?

And if people like FurtherBeyond are going to bring up Hong Kong as a bit of historical whataboutery, we could talk about Ifni, the cause of the 'Forgotten War'  in 1957, after which most of it was occupied by Morocco. Like Ceuta and Melilla, it was a Spanish enclave, although it was only after the war, that it was made a province, as a riposte to the UN. However in 1969, Franco handed it back to Morocco, without an act of self-determination.

The other canard beloved of Spain is that Ceuta and Melilla were Spanish before Morocco existed, but much of their territory, like Ifni, was acquired under the 1860 Treaty of Wad-Ras with, you guessed it, the non-existent Kingdom of Morocco, so the next time the Spanish point out that Hong Kong Island and Kowloon were ceded by China to Britain in perpetuity, remind them how Moroccans feel about this 'unfair and unequal treaty'.      

FurtherBeyond peddles the Hispano-irredentist claim that the 'inhabitants' or 'current residents' of Gibraltar, like those of the Falklands are not a people but a 'planted population', and that it is a 'no-brainer', 'self-fulfilling prophecy' and 'bloody obvious' that people who are descended from or brought by the colonial power will choose to remain linked to that country, as if Gibraltarians and Falkland Islanders were robots like the Stepford wives.

While I may question why Gibraltarians wish to remain under British sovereignty, I have no doubt that the choice to do so is one made by them, not made remotely by some shadowy puppet master in Whitehall - if that were the case, why would they, from the Chief Minister down, have had a showdown with the then UK government in 2002? Far from being told by the UK what to do, Gibraltar is adept at using British public opinion to its advantage.

It is, of course, interesting to note that the people of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean, voted to remain under French rule when the rest of the Comoros Islands voted for independence, despite the fact that, far from being white settlers from the metropole, they are indistinguishable from the Comorians. However, as one politician put it, 'we may be black, poor and Muslim, but we have been French longer than Nice.'  

Belize, despite having been claimed by Guatemala, (what is it with Spanish-speaking countries?) managed to gain independence, albeit with some British military protection, and having to deal with the UN, whose Spanish-speaking members were aghast that a predominantly mestizo population did not want to be part of a unstable tinpot dictatorship, but sought independence within the Commonwealth. (The Queen is still head of state!)

Using the 'appeal to authority' logical fallacy, FurtherBeyond loves quoting selectively James Crawford's work The Creation of States in International Law about limitations on self-determination in 'colonial enclaves', but what he says about this in application to Gibraltar (on page 348) is that it 'may' be true, and that the view that it is, is one taken by a majority in the General Assembly. And that's all he says!   

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=63XnCwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=editions:jJp43ocCx1wC&pg=PA348#v=snippet&q="such as with Gibraltar"&f=false

After quoting from Professor Crawford's impressive CV, FurtherBeyond likes to retort to opponents 'those are his qualifications, what are yours?' from a shroud of anonymity, although someone calling herself Aranza Muñoz wrote an almost identical screed about Gibraltar on the Australian Crikey website three years ago. 

https://blogs.crikey.com.au/worldisnotenough/2013/08/17/just-a-war-of-words-over-gibraltar/

Perhaps this is the same Aranza Muñoz featured in a report in Olive Press in January 2012, described as 'born in Australia to Spanish parents'.

http://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2012/01/27/lawyers-in-the-dock-in-spain/

I confess I have only an MA in International Relations, but you don't need a qualification in forensic linguistics to work out who is saying the same thing over and over again, or that most Spanish people who speak English, even fluently, don't tend to use Australian-like expressions like 'you're dreaming mate',  you can just highlight the text and search for it, or look at what FurtherBeyond comments on on Disqus and The Guardian - Gibraltar or the Falklands, that's all. 

If this is Spain's (and Argentina's) answer to China's 50 Cent Army, no one in Gibraltar or the Falklands need lose any sleep.      


There is a good reason why Spain wants Gibraltar. The answer lies across the pond, on the African side, an enclave named Ceuta. It belongs to Spain. If Spain were to also have Gibraltar, they could effectively control the entrance to the Mediterranean even better.

Only people with a notion of Empire put credence in the idea that Gibraltar is British. The very idea that any territory 1,000 miles away from GB could be anything other than Non British is completely lost on them. Same for the Falklands islands, 11,000 miles away. They will never understand it. Distance, physiological, cultural, historical, is completely lost on them. I've always believed this is a residue of the entitlement class, "It's British", regardless of others. Just because a territory is taken a couple of hundred years ago doesn't make it British today.

@T1221 Gibraltar is closer to London than the Canary Islands are to Madrid. But apparently they are integral to the Spanish nation state. And Gibraltar is NOT part of the UK. Don't confuse being 'British' with being 'UKish', for want of a better term.

Why should Spain think - in the world of 2017 - she is entitled to (selectively) redraw certain European borders to how they were (for a period) over 300 years ago, against the freely and democratically expressed wishes of the people. It is Spain that has the colonial attitude.

@Divas @T1221  Under Article X of the Treaty of Utrecht, Spain ceded to the UK "the full and entire propriety of the town and castle of Gibraltar" – nothing more.

Although this has been interpreted by some to involve a cession of sovereignty, Professor James Crawford from Cambridge University, and currently a justice of the International Court of Justice, the foremost authority on this aspect of international law, does not accept that this was so. The "propriety" was yielded "without any territorial jurisdiction".

Moreover, the treaty imposes a number of clear restrictions on the cession and on the use of Gibraltar by the British for example, a use of the maritime waters limited to those of the port, with restrictions regarding the settlement by nationalities historically hostile to Spain, as well as a clause that stipulates that if the UK were to relinquish its "propriety" then Spain would have first option over "the town and castle of Gibraltar"; both Britain and Spain accept that this means ruling out independence for Gibraltar for as long as Spain retains its claim.

The terms of the treaty thus clearly evidence that the Gibraltar is part of Spain’s sovereign territory that is currently occupied conditionally, under the terms of the Treaty, by the United Kingdom.

Moreover since the 1960s, the UN has continually listed Gibraltar as a territory which the UK must decolonise.

It is high time that the UK decolonised Gibraltar by returning the territory back to Spain as mandated by the UN and stipulated under Clause X of the Treaty of Utrecht. In this way the UK would not only comply with its obligations under international law but it would also enable the current residents of Gibraltar to continue to reside within the European Union.

Rubbish. Just because Gibraltar is next to Spain doesn't make it Spanish, any more than that Falklands bring a thousand miles from Argentina makes them Spanish (or, for that matter, Ireland's proximity to the UK makes it British).

Gibraltar and the Falklands are British because the people of those places have, for centuries, identified as such and because they have a right to self determination their own identity.

Similarly, the Republic of Ireland is a republic because the people of that place decided so.

It is castillian Spain, and Argentinia, that need to get over their Imperial hubris. As for the UN, it is sad to say that there is a great deal of western bashing double standards that go on below the security council.

@Adam Leichman Are you suggesting that Professor Crawford is mistaken? If so on what basis? What are your qualifications in international law?

Gibraltar is considered a “non-self-governing territory” by the United Nations, and thus is subject to decolonization. The UK needs to accept that it cannot hope to create or maintain colonies in this day and age and hope to get away with it scot free. The UN has never accepted Gibraltar as a nation state. Instead it has continually listed Gibraltar as a territory which the UK must decolonise since the 1960s. 

The UK continually points to the results of referenda conducted in Gibraltar in a pathetic attempt to justify its position. However, the use of referenda to survey British colonists illegally occupying other nations’ territories is simply a clumsy attempt to offer some veneer of legality to an otherwise illegal act – a fig leaf for the continuance of colonialism. Great Britain, compelled to countenance de-colonization by the UN, has sought to retain its colony in Gibraltar by invalidly invoking the principle of self-determination in a clearly self-serving way. 

For the UK to ask the descendants of people they imported to garrison its colony generations before whether they want to maintain their links with the mother country is a no-brainer. The answer is bloody obvious. It’s a self-fulfilling prophesy designed to obfuscate the underlying territorial sovereignty dispute. The UN has declared such ‘referenda’ invalid. For example, UN General Assembly Resolution 2353 observed that the referendum conducted in the colony of Gibraltar in the 1960s was contrary to the various resolutions which had been adopted previously by the UN General Assembly requiring the UK to decolonise Gibraltar.

@Adam Leichman  Gibraltar is not "next to Spain". It is an integral part of it, in the same way that Malvinas is an integral part of Argentina or NI an integral part of the Republic of Ireland.

3 different problems and 1 common denominator: the UK.

As for "the people" of those places, they are implanted populations. Self determination in these cases are not valid.

Go back to school

@paulcedron @Adam Leichman  Paul, I think that it is you who needs to go back to school. Agentinia is a colony - perhaps you are also arguing that the people of Argentinia are not entitled to self-determination, along with the populations of the USA and Candada?

As for Ireland, the island of Ireland has been settled by multiple populations over the millenia - Dublin itself was founded by invading vikings, or perhaps you are arguing that those of us with viking heritiage aren't entitled to self-determination. 

You are making a nativist argument and, like all nativist arguments, it just doesn't stack up.

This article is biased and ill-informed. It has been Britain that has constantly encroached on Spanish territory rather than vice versa. Gibraltar is a relic of an imperial past and needs to be returned to Spain. Let it remain a part of the EU rather than be subject to illusional Tory promises of greater trade with the Commonwealth and everything else which is non-EU.

That is a matter for the people of Gibraltar. If they wish to become a part of Spain, and remain part of the EU by doing so, then fine - an autonomous, bilingual, Communidad of Gibraltar within Spain along the lines of the nation of Catalonia sounds fine to me.

@Adam Leichman but it is not fine for the people of Gibraltar. Gibraltar seeks good neighborly relations based upon friendship and mutual respect. It does not however wish to be part of Spain.
That is not a Spain hostile view, the people of Gibraltar wish Spain well and friendship, they just do not want to be forced to become part of her.

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