Gibraltar's National Day

Jason

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10th September - today - is Gibraltar's National Day. It marks the anniversary of the 1967 sovereignty referendum when 99.64% of the population of Gibraltar voted for British sovereignty. The 2002 sovereignty referendum resulted in a vote for British sovereignty of 98.48%.

Tensions between Gibraltar and Spain are at their highest since the Franco years. Spanish delays at the border are around three to four hours and have peaked at eight. Spanish coast guards have shot at a Gibraltan jet skier in Gibraltar waters. Spanish coast guards have supported a mass trespass by Spanish fishermen. Gibraltar registered cars in Spain have been torched with the Spanish police apparently doing nothing. Spain has arrested a British man who tweeted that the delays at the border were "torture" by Spain. Spain is stopping the import into Gibraltar of building materials.

Today the Gibraltar flag flies over the Foreign Office in London as an expression of UK support for the people of Gibraltar. In the EU parliament today the issue of the Spanish blockade of Gibraltar has been raised by an MEP. The governments of Gibraltar and the UK have lodged a complaint with the EU commission about the border problems, which are in breach of EU law. Gibraltar is raising a separate human rights issue about Spanish border guards confining people in their cars for many hours in blazing sun without access to water or toilets - this is by definition torture.

We have a nasty issue of an utterly corrupt and failing Spanish government presiding over a catastropic economy which is using Gibraltar as a way of deflecting public attention. The people of Gibraltar are suffering.
 

eurotop40

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10th September - today - is Gibraltar's National Day. It marks the anniversary of the 1967 sovereignty referendum when 99.64% of the population of Gibraltar voted for British sovereignty. The 2002 sovereignty referendum resulted in a vote for British sovereignty of 98.48%.

Tensions between Gibraltar and Spain are at their highest since the Franco years. Spanish delays at the border are around three to four hours and have peaked at eight. Spanish coast guards have shot at a Gibraltan jet skier in Gibraltar waters. Spanish coast guards have supported a mass trespass by Spanish fishermen. Gibraltar registered cars in Spain have been torched with the Spanish police apparently doing nothing. Spain has arrested a British man who tweeted that the delays at the border were "torture" by Spain. Spain is stopping the import into Gibraltar of building materials.

Today the Gibraltar flag flies over the Foreign Office in London as an expression of UK support for the people of Gibraltar. In the EU parliament today the issue of the Spanish blockade of Gibraltar has been raised by an MEP. The governments of Gibraltar and the UK have lodged a complaint with the EU commission about the border problems, which are in breach of EU law. Gibraltar is raising a separate human rights issue about Spanish border guards confining people in their cars for many hours in blazing sun without access to water or toilets - this is by definition torture.

We have a nasty issue of an utterly corrupt and failing Spanish government presiding over a catastropic economy which is using Gibraltar as a way of deflecting public attention. The people of Gibraltar are suffering.

What a drama queen...

btw:
1) Gibraltar is not a nation, so a "national" day is a wrong concept.
2) You are repeating "ad nauseam" always the same events / other people could do the same.
3) As a Brit I would not spit on other countries' government and call them corrupt. Yours is not "saint" either. You are simply more hypocritical and better at concealing.
4) The parasitic economy of the UK (essentially based on gambling and selling the country to the US military) is not an example to contrapose to the Spanish economy that - based on tourism - has suffered the recession. Now you are laughing about and despising the Spaniards. Some day somebody might laugh about and despise the UK.
5) The Spaniards are not less free than the British my dear. Go ask all your low class people living on government benefits how free they are to starve and go and get cheap food in special shops.
6) Hopefully the Spaniards will block the import of concrete and such via land border to Gibraltar. They are not stupid.
7) The British government and people like you also use Gibraltar as a diversion in order to have the people forget austerity.

Again, in the past you might have fooled the world with your arrogant attitude of super-beings. Today the world does not care so much about your superiority complex.
No offense intended to all nice people here.
 
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ConanTheBarber

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Again, in the past you might have fooled the world with your arrogant attitude of super-beings. Today the world does not care so much about your superiority complex.
No offense intended to all nice people here.
Will you give it a rest, eurotop?
You became boring long ago.
Your stereotypes about the Brits, if they ever did have merit, are outdated and offensive.
 
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eurotop40

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Will you give it a rest, eurotop?
You became boring long ago.
Your stereotypes about the Brits, if they ever did have merit, are outdated and offensive.

Then Jason should stop offending the Spaniards. He is just as boring. Accusing Spain of corruption is just as stereotyped. OK?
 

cliftoncock

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I'd have more sympathy for the Spanish government's stance on Gibralter if IT did not continue to have enclaves in Morrocco. Hypocracy?
 

ConanTheBarber

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Then Jason should stop offending the Spaniards. He is just as boring. Accusing Spain of corruption is just as stereotyped. OK?

Jason is far from boring ... and you so often are.
Jason's remarks about corruption apply to a particular Spanish government. He is not speaking in general about the Spanish people. He may be right, he may be wrong ... but he is not expressing a stereotype.
Everything you say about the Brits expresses a bent and largely outdated stereotype.
So no ... not OK.
 

Jason

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Curiously the Spanish corruption issue took a step forward on Gibraltar's National Day.

Spain has a system where people are named by a judge as a suspect before they are prosecuted. On 10th September two big names were identified as suspects:

Manuel Chaves, former deputy PM of Spain;
José Antonio Griñan, former president of Andalusia.

These are both socialists. Rajoy has of course admitted "mistakes" but has refused to resign, and he's a right winger. The corruption issue in Spain appears to be affecting all major political parties and very big names in them. We seem to be seeing a corrupt political class rather than a corrupt party or corrupt individuals.

I don't think there's much disagreement with the idea that the Gibraltar issue is a distraction, and therein lies the nub of the problem. There is no "real" disagreement to discuss. Spain knows that self-determination trumps the concept of territorial integrity. Self-determination rightly means that the Moroccan enclaves and Canary Islands remain Spanish though territorial integrity would give them to Morocco. There are comparable issues all over the world. Alaska is part of the USA because of self determination, not territorial integrity.

For the EU Spain poses a big headache. We've now seen that Greece before the collapse had a corrupt political class, and the position in Spain seems remarkably similar. It also seems that Spanish national income accounts are not right - indeed I think everyone knows this, but in a world where almost all Spanish bonds are bought by banks (in effect by the ECB) this is an elephant in the corner which can be ignored. Greece was taken to task by the Eurozone (and Cyprus); Spain is flexing its muscles. And the Gibraltar border is an area where Spain is testing the EU. Spain's breach of EU law is clear, though the European Commission is doing everything it can to avoid getting monitors to the Gibraltar border to confirm this officially (which will then force them to act). The sanction against an EU nation that imposes border restrictions on another EU nation (excessive delays, blockade including part-blockade, border incursions) is suspension. This means that the nation is considered to have all the responsibilities of EU membership but none of the advantages, eg MEPs in Brussels, access to ECB funding. The punishment is so extreme that it seems impossible that it would ever be applied - yet the legalities actually seem quite simple. Suspension would lead to a financial crisis in Spain which would almost certainly require euro-exit. And of course there would be problems for Portugal also.

Cameron's support for Gibraltar is clear. I think in the short run the people of Gibraltar and the Spanish cross-border commuters just have to put up with the problems - but it is nasty. Building materials can of course be shipped (either direct from UK or from Morocco, Portugal, France) though there are costs (who should pay?) The damage to the Gibraltar economy might justify some form of special business subsidy (again who should pay?) Curiously there's also a lot of economic damage to the Spanish border town of La Linea. There's also some reduction in the number of Brits booking holidays in Spain, and Brits holidaying in Spain is a major source of income for Spain.

It just seems silly.
 
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eurotop40

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Jason is far from boring ... and you so often are.
Jason's remarks about corruption apply to a particular Spanish government. He is not speaking in general about the Spanish people. He may be right, he may be wrong ... but he is not expressing a stereotype.
Everything you say about the Brits expresses a bent and largely outdated stereotype.
So no ... not OK.

What? One of Jason's stereotypes is e.g. that nationalism is sacrosanct and that the EU is so evil. Please...
Of course, that fits in a certain type of masturbatory agenda many people like. If you like it, please enjoy...

Why should I express largely outdated stereotypes when what I read is 19th century stuff my British old brainwashed landlady used to repeat acritically?
 

cliftoncock

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eurotop40,

Perhaps I'm wrong, but on this and other threads you do seem to take an aggressively anti-British line.

Why?

I agree there are plenty of reasons to be critical of Britain (and we do it often) but what have we done to you? (Floodgates opening!)
 

ActionBuddy

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Rajoy has of course admitted "mistakes"...
As unmentioned in the thread thus far, I suppose I could fairly ask, "Who the fuck is Rajoy?"... But, being the polite man that I am, I Googled him.

It's a odd thing when bloggers just assume others are totally up on the political news of small countries, thousands of miles away... Not that we shouldn't be.
 

Jason

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As unmentioned in the thread thus far, I suppose I could fairly ask, "Who the fuck is Rajoy?"... But, being the polite man that I am, I Googled him.

It's a odd thing when bloggers just assume others are totally up on the political news of small countries, thousands of miles away... Not that we shouldn't be.

Thanks for the polite googling. He's the prime minister of Spain. In Spanish he's called "Presidente" meaning "President of the Government", but prime minister is the English translation usually used as he is not head of state. He was elected 2011 and is probably in place until 2015. Spain has a population of 47m. In European terms that's big.

From the perspective of the UK, Spain is not thousands of miles away. A majority of Brits have visited Spain; many holiday there every year; a phenomenal number have homes there. I think "who is the prime minister of Spain?" would be quite an easy pub-quiz question in the UK (answer Rahh-hoy). He does make the UK news quite often, for example over his stance on bull-fighting (which he supports).

Right now he seems to be causing a lot of instability:
- Catalonia has a majority nationalist government and is demanding an independence referendum, which he is opposing. Perversely this seems the most likely way to move Catalonia towards independence.
- His intention to give Argentina (=sell on a loan which broke Argentina cannot repay) warplanes suited to attack the Falklands is a major friction surface with the UK and NATO. I'm not sure that the UK can allow this gift to happen.
- Gibraltar is more than a storm in a tea-cup. It is going to get Spain censured by the Commission and the ECHR, both of which lead to major problems within the EU treaties.
- He's leading a failing economy. Soros stated years ago that it would be Spain that would bring down the euro, and he could be right. In theory the Eurozone has in place a firewall that could withstand a Spanish collapse. In practice I don't think such a firewall is possible. Spain could collapse and take the euro with it.
- Right now he's playing the right-wing, Castilian nationalist card. It's not even Spanish nationalist he's representing. He's fallen out with the Catalans, the Basques, the EU, Gibraltar (and therefore the UK), and doubtless more. He's friendly with France (but Hollande is socialist) and Italy (though Berlusconi's mob don't pull all the strings). He's getting on quite well with Putin. What Rajoy is doing is consolidating his Castilian power-base in what could become an isolated Spain.

Rajoy really matters, for all the wrong reasons. I suppose we all hope the show can be kept on the road until 2015 when the opposition socialists will probably get in. Rajoy represents the political party that was Franco's party (they've had a name-change since). The opposition are pretty left-wing socialists, on the road to the Marxist utopia. Spain alternates between the almost fascist and the almost communist, with a king to ensure both sides behave and a Roman Catholic church to absolve both from their many sins. And then there's the siesta, which means all the big decisions can be put off until tomorrow. (And yes that's a joke - this is LPSG not the FT!) Right now Rajoy plays a pivotal role. Decision he takes can affect the whole EU and even the USA! :wink:
 

eurotop40

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eurotop40,

Perhaps I'm wrong, but on this and other threads you do seem to take an aggressively anti-British line.

Why?

I agree there are plenty of reasons to be critical of Britain (and we do it often) but what have we done to you? (Floodgates opening!)

Dear Cliftoncock

I do not have an aggressively anti-British line "per se" but I am deeply allergic to blatantly one-sided representations of reality and to propaganda. Don't you think that British press is openly manipulative?

Furthermore you can't deny that the UK government is very active at de-stabilizing Europe, sometimes soft-spokenly and suavely, sometimes openly aggressively, or can you prove the opposite? Does the UK government mafia show any interest at European prosperity? I would say it is clearly sabotaging it. Should I "love" or have any respect for such type of people?