Your Correspondent Come into my parley…

“He tells us there are no costs. He tells us it's just benefits, just so you know,” Dame Emily Thornberry tells Europe Minister Stephen Doughty, carrying a smile she has held for much of the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) hearing moments earlier with Chief Minister Fabian Picardo.

Thornberry and Picardo have known each other for some time. Before Labour came to power. In the early days after Brexit she was shadow Foreign Secretary and spoke at Gibraltar receptions at party conferences.

On another day the appearance of Gibraltar’s leader in Westminster on an issue as significant as the UK-EU Gibraltar Agreement could have drawn a more challenging Brexiteer crowd sniffing and sniping from behind the scenes for anything to throw at the Labour government.

But this is a week of turmoil across the Parliament of the kind many hoped the arrival of Keir Starmer would see a line drawn in the sand.

Instead Thornberry, who is chairing the Foreign Affairs Committee session on the Gibraltar treaty has a bigger chunk of meat in her sights - Olly Robbins, now probably the highest IQ expert on the underside of buses (part pushed, part carelessly close to the kerb), is to appear before her the following day.

And so the Gibraltar session is an almost upbeat hiatus, a relaxant that preludes Starmer’s appearance before the House to explain the Mandelson fracas. He’s always been stodgy serious but never has he looked so miserable and precarious as he did whilst Opposition Leader Kemi Badenoch, by the week strengthening her performance, and reportedly David Cameron whispering advice to her moments before, grills him in a mostly frog-in-warm-water mode.

So Dame Emily is in a good mood.

What goes around, comes around. Starmer, she publicly declared shortly after the summer 2025 election, had disappointed her when not giving her a senior position in his Government…Attorney General which she had shadowed perhaps…or Foreign Secretary, also shadowed. Anyway, behind that homely, friendly welcome lies a very astute and strategic thinker.

It’s difficult to convince young people that disappointment and failure can often be a solid path to substance and success. But Dame Emily won’t have missed the reality that her exclusion has reinforced her standing.

Her independence as FAC chair is unquestionable. And whilst the Starmer episode once again sets off an itchy bottom for the dyed in the wool Labour-leadership aspirant Andy Burnham (his progress still trapped by his not being an MP), and Angela Rayner braves and stamps her way through her HMRC reviews, the corridors of Parliament run rife with rumours. Hopefuls to No 10, openly pledge loyalty to the PM and even more eagerly manoeuvre to see what doors may open for them.

Until last Tuesday’s appearance of Olly Robbins before the FAC, I would have said Starmer might yet hold out, even after next month’s almost certain thrashing at regional elections.

It’s now a matter of when.

If he’s pushed sooner rather than later, don’t be surprised if Thornberry slips onto the list. Her chairing of the Olly session followed by a quickstep to join the ‘News Agents’ podcast (Emily Maitlis, Jon Sopel et al, a good listen) was a lesson in diplomacy and political craft.

Starmer, I still believe, is a serious politician with honourable and well motivated intentions. But the FAC session whilst endorsing the sacking of the Foreign Office’s top man, wiped nothing off Starmer’s tacky shoe.

Take a scroll though Thornberry’s X ‘tweets’ and it is a very balanced wide-ranging bow to left-leaning common sense, not found in other more northernly parts of Islington.

Don’t be surprised if her name pops up in the buzz of a bid for the leadership when that time comes.

That’s not to say that she would take that crown. The push in Labour and the UK generally is for clear signposts after so much management speak. So, a move to harder left is more likely. But…
In fairness, Starmer’s overall success in keeping UK in a good place in the global storm is under-appreciated.

But I digress. The point is Dame Emily has just hours earlier, in Parliament’s Wilson Room where the FAC is meeting, been smiling a long time. It’s almost an appreciation of Picardo’s energetic ability to keep the camera rolling and talk-up the moment. Labour, and Starmer in particular, are deeply short of that kind of mojo.

Chairing the Foreign Affairs Committee yet again Dame Emily smiles, can’t help herself smiling, as she asks Chief Minister what, in his view, are the main benefits to Gibraltar of this treaty and what are the costs and the downsides?

Ever conscious that the main audience is the home audience, eyes and ears through the internet, Picardo sets out the critical positives that the Agreement brings (and they are critical and good for the whole region) and prompts her to ask again. “So what are the downsides?”

“So, I don't think that there are downsides,” comes the reply.

Hang on - management of expectations, steering the focus on the important wins, as you regularly measure the depth of public opinion - that’s one thing. But barristocratic rhetoric has limits on the licence it can take. The days of projecting different nuances on messages depending on the audience are long gone. The pudding is fine with the eggs it already has in it.

If I learned one thing in my two decades as Editor, readers of the Chronicle reflect quietly and keep their counsel until they feel that they need to speak out. We have been on enough journeys as a people to know that a good destination rarely comes with an easy passage.

Eyes are wide open.

It’s easy to forget the heat of the summer when your sitting in the comfortable breeze of the spring. Rain and gales blow over, but, sooner or later, return.

Early last month, when interviewed by the Diario de Cadiz, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares was asked if Picardo had been a tough negotiator.

“I have had a good relationship with him. He’s been an important player in us reaching this agreement.

He has had to take decisions that, I understand, were not easy for him. He is a person with who, when the agreement starts, I will have to speak with on many issues that he previously discussed with London. Now he will have to talk to Madrid,” said Albares.

If the Viewpoint on GBC, some days ago, with local students giving their views is anything to go by, it confirms that a new generation is willing to place their trust where older, frontier cagebirds are likely to be more reluctant. But then +- 17- to 18-year-olds have only experienced a progressive PSOE government.

Of course, some will feel ‘downsides’ harder to swallow than others. But, clearly, having Spain as a ‘friend’ is going to be, in many ways, more difficult than the many years where their lack of diplomacy towards us had become a way of life.

We have moved to a different stage where more ‘mano izquierda’ will be needed. The focus on whether, and who, can push the ‘abort’ button to end the Treaty is largely misplaced.

Sovereignty can appear very clear when you focus on a flag, but smoky at the edges when you are considering what any agreement between jurisdictions means and how controls are effected.

Apart from being prepared for the expected unexpecteds that changes of government Spain, UK, Gibraltar may bring, it’s important to know that conflicting positions on sovereignty have, by mutual agreement, been maintained.

Just as Spain turned taps on and off when we were an actual part of the EU, so too nothing stops anyone playing games without going nuclear on the Treaty. The hot and cold options remain.

Sitting in the car, looking at the fence that has corralled our frustrations, joys and hopes for a lifetime, I glimpse across the airport which is at the heart of this closing chapter (not the tome) in the so called ‘Gibraltar question’.

It’s a scene of aircraft on the runway that prompts a memory of Rick Blaine’s last uncertain words in the Casablanca movie to Captain Renault:
“Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
Let’s see.
One cautious step at a time.

Bedside reading: Joan Didon Play it as it lays
Podcast at https://substack.com/@dominiquesearle