Gibraltar fears being the last Brexit frontier

Twenty years ago, a bronze statue of a man with a bicycle was erected on the border between Gibraltar and Spain in homage to the thousands of Spanish workers who make the journey every day to the Rock to work and then return at night.

When he created the work, the late sculptor Nacho Falgueras was envisaging the way the British overseas territory and Spain depend on each other.

Fast forward to today and this relationship could be under threat. Negotiations between Britain and Spain over how this border will be managed in the post-Brexit era are in limbo.

A deal has been held up over disagreements concerning the role of Spanish police on the Schengen border and Spanish ambitions to partly manage Gibraltar airport which falls within the Rock.

Across the border, the decision by Spain’s Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, to call a snap election for 23 July in the wake of disastrous local election results could create further problems. A series of polls suggest that the conservative People’s Party (PP) will gain the most votes but is unlikely to win enough seats to form a government so may depend on the support of the far-right Vox party to rule.

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The possibility of a right-wing government in Madrid has spread fear among the 34,000 inhabitants of the Rock, a tiny isthmus at the foot of southern Spain.

“For Gibraltar, that could turn the present nightmare into a perfect Brexit storm instead of the rainbow of opportunity we had been promised and hoped for,” wrote Brian Reyes, editor of The Gibraltar Chronicle, recently. “For the ultra-nationalists of Vox, choosing a stick over a carrot on Gibraltar would be like red meat to wolves.”

Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the PP leader who paints himself as a moderate, cooled concerns in Gibraltar when he unveiled the party’s election manifesto.

“We will restart a responsible dialogue with the British government to address the process of decolonisation of Gibraltar and the recovery of sovereignty, in accordance with the doctrine established by the United Nations,” the manifesto says.

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“We will tackle the situation that has arisen after Brexit, defending Spanish fiscal, financial, environmental and security interests, and pay special attention to the circulation of people.”

In Gibraltar, the tone of the man who could be Spain’s next prime minister allayed worries – for now. John Isola, president of the Gibraltar Chamber of Commerce, said the key was keeping the border open.

“I think what [Feijóo] said is welcomed because that fluidity at the frontier is important for a business front and a family perspective,” he told The Independent.

“Gibraltar families have lots of connections across the border. There are 15,000 people who cross the border whose wellbeing is linked to what happens at the border. If Brexit happened as it was meant to happen, with checks at the border, that would be disastrous for cross-frontier workers.”

Under a temporary deal reached between London and Madrid in 2020, most people crossing the border are waved through by border officials.

All this could come grinding to a halt if a new right-wing government in Spain adopted a hawkish tone towards the Rock.

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Sometimes depicted as a picture postcard throwback to the 1950s in the Mediterranean sun, Gibraltar is in fact very different.

With its low tax, it is home to parts of the UK motor insurance industry, many British betting companies and a trade in alcohol and cigarettes because of its zero per cent sales tax. The Spanish maintain Gibraltar’s mainstay is a roaring illegal trade in smuggled cigarettes.

Spain has long claimed sovereignty over Gibraltar despite ceding the isthmus to Britain in 1713 under the Treaty of Utrecht.

But for the hard-right Vox party, Gibraltar is hugely symbolic. The party once unfurled a huge Spanish flag from the Rock as an act of defiance.

When Rishi Sunak and Mr Sánchez discussed the Gibraltar deal in a telephone call in May, Vox used the opportunity to spell out its hardline stance.

Santiago Abascal, the Vox leader, said that for Spain, anything less than recovering the sovereignty of the Rock would be a “betrayal” for Madrid.

Juan Jose Uceda, of the Association of Spanish Workers in Gibraltar, said many on both sides of the border were worried about the uncertainty over the Rock's future.

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“We feel bad about the situation now. We were expecting the Gibraltar talks to end after the Northern Ireland negotiations but that did not happen,” he told The Independent.

“Now we have something we never expected with the right wing coming up … it can mean that the situation could be very difficult for the people of Gibraltar and on the Spanish side of the border.”

Mr Uceda, a Spanish former purchase manager who worked in Gibraltar until he retired, added: “Vox are so stupidly nationalist. They hate Gibraltar – even though getting Gibraltar back for Spain is never going to happen. They would love to close the door to Spain like [General Francisco] Franco because they are fascists.”

Uceda said both the Rock and Spain were linked by family bonds and a shared language known as Llanito, which is a mixture of Spanish and English.

Despite giving up Gibraltar – a tiny landmass which is 2.6 square miles (6.8 sq km) –over three hundred years ago, Spain has never come to terms with losing over it.

Carlos Miranda, a former Spanish ambassador to London, said the Treaty of Utrecht stipulated that Spain had the first rights to the Rock if Britain ever chose to renounce the territory.

With its base for nuclear submarines and stranglehold over the entry to the Mediterranean, it is strategically important to Britain. Add to that its fiercely pro-British population and the prospect of the red and yellow Spanish flag flying over Gibraltar any time soon seems unlikely.

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Despite all the sabre-rattling, Miranda said he doubted a PP government would get tough over the Rock.

“Madrid and London have an agreement about Gibraltar in which there is the European Union and Britain. Until the problem of Northern Ireland is completely solved, they probably cannot resolve Gibraltar,” he told The Independent.

However, proving perhaps that the Spanish never give up, Miranda raised the possibility that Gibraltarians might tire of a Britain which voted for Brexit and rejected the desires of 96 per cent of voters in the Rock to stay close to the EU.

“In the future, perhaps the population might say Britain did not listen and we might as well be Spanish and connect with the European Union,” he suggested.

Denis MacShane, a former Europe minister in Tony Blair’s Labour government, caused an international political row when he likened Gibraltar to Ceuta and Melilla, the Spanish enclaves in Africa which are claimed by Morocco. “José María Aznar [the then Spanish prime minister] rang up Tony [Blair] to complain,” he recalled.

He believes if the PP does win power it would act responsibly over Gibraltar. “I don’t think the professionals in the [Spanish] foreign ministry, who I have met, would want to pick a major row with Britain over this,” he said.

Gibraltar may be over 1,400 miles from London but in the UK it is still symbolic as an outpost of plucky Britannia, MacShane said. “Gibraltar really reverberates in Britain."

Spain’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment when contacted by The Independent.