Gibraltar is a thorn in The Tories' side that won't go away

I well remember being in southern Spain not far from the Rock and in the company of Gibraltarians on June 2016 – yes it was that long ago – when the results of the Brexit referendum were announced.

READ MORE: Theresa May's post-Brexit plan fails to win over Tory waverers

If you think many Scots were disappointed and angry that day, then believe me our response wasn’t a patch on those Gibraltarians I was with. Most were spitting blood over what they saw as the beginning of catastrophic events that would only bode ill for Gibraltarians among others.

As one of the first results to come through and with a resounding 96% of Gibraltarians in favour of remaining in Europe, those like-minded among us could have been forgiven for thinking we were home and dry.

In all, Gibraltar saw the biggest Remain vote of all the voting areas and this with a phenomenally high voter turnout of 84%.

Looking back now at such a decisive Remain vote it’s all too easy to forget that overwhelming as it was, that ballot is not Gibraltar’s most conclusive referendum result to date.

For that you have go back to 2002, when Gibraltarians were offered the chance to vote on whether the Rock’s sovereignty should be shared with Spain.

The result that time around was 98.5% of Gibraltar’s population emphatically declaring themselves proudly British, with an unshakeable intention to remain so.

Which brings me to the quandary Gibraltar and its citizens now find themselves in over Brexit. For just as the Rock sticks out geographically like a sore thumb on the southernmost tip of Spain, so does its identity in the Brexit debate.

Indeed ever since that day in April last year when the EU granted Spain a veto over how the Brexit divorce deal should apply to Gibraltar, political mischief-makers have inhabited the negotiations on the issue as doggedly as the Barbary macaque apes on the Rock’s cliffs.

That veto effectively means that London and Madrid, in consultation with Gibraltar, must agree separately how and if the Brexit deal should apply to the Rock.

Since Theresa May has repeatedly been clear that she will not leave any part of the “UK family” behind – a pledge she repeated again this week – the veto applies effectively to the entire Brexit deal, if she wants progress that includes Gibraltar.

Yesterday, even while Mrs May was bigging up the latest agreement with the EU, the Gibraltarian burr under the Brexit saddle was continuing to cause considerable discomfort and looks certain to do so for some time to come. Spain will see to that, you can be sure.

If anyone had any doubts that Spain means business and is prepared to use their veto, they only need look at the thorny issue of Gibraltar airport, which is currently blocked from Europe’s Open Skies Agreement because Spain has refused to allow it to be covered by EU law.

This week the UK and Spain pressed on with their bilateral preliminary agreement on Gibraltar, with both governments looking to close the deal that will guide relations between Spain and the Rock once Brexit happens.

This preliminary agreement, which is part of the Gibraltar Protocol in the draft Brexit deal, comprises four memorandums of understanding (MoUs) on issues like tobacco products, cross-border workers, environmental concerns and co-operation on police and border control issues. Perhaps more importantly there is also a tax agreement, that seeks to reduce what Spain views as unfair competition from Gibraltar, where many businesses choose to register because of the lower taxes even though their activities take place in Spain.

All these negotiations, however, have been conducted on the sidelines of the general Brexit agreement, to which, and make no mistake about it, Spain is still voicing strong objections. Only on Wednesday night, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez, while admitting to this preliminary deal, was still insisting he would veto the general Brexit agreement if Spain’s conditions regarding future relations with Gibraltar were not met.

According to Spanish newspaper El Pais, Sanchez is reported to have spoken to May on the phone telling her that Spain will vote no to the draft withdrawal agreement on Sunday unless the document makes it clear that the way in which the future relationship between the UK and EU applies to Gibraltar must be negotiated solely between Madrid and London.

Spain alone, of course, cannot veto the withdrawal agreement, which only has to be passed by a “qualified majority” vote of EU member states at the European Council.

But other countries have also raised different concerns with the withdrawal agreement document, and should they team up with Spain they could potentially have the numbers to sink it.

For her part, Theresa May continues to insist that she is negotiating a global agreement and that Gibraltar will not be excluded from the talks about post-Brexit arrangements.

Yesterday the Prime Minister said she was “confident that on Sunday we will be able to agree a deal for the whole of the United Kingdom family including Gibraltar”.

For some time now Spain has been careful about being seen to link its long-standing sovereignty claims to Gibraltar directly to the Brexit divorce deal, but no-one should be under any illusion.

The current situation over Brexit provides a near unprecedented opportunity for Madrid to gain leverage and bring Gibraltar further under Spain’s sphere of influence. Let’s not forget that Gibraltar has also always been a hot-button issue with the Spanish public. It’s worth noting, too, that the Spanish region of Andalusia borders Gibraltar, and includes the county of Camp de Gibraltar or “countryside of Gibraltar”.

Andalusia has local elections scheduled for December 2, just a week after the final Brexit summit, and that, too, must be focusing the mind of the Spanish prime minister.

It was only last year that The Sun newspaper ran its “Hands Off Our Rock” campaign, fuelled by concern, it said, over Theresa May’s refusal to rule out talks with Madrid over Gibraltar’s future. Right now she has little choice but to talk to Madrid, for the thorny issue of the Rock is not going away any time soon.