A moment for honesty and clarity

By Marlene Hassan Nahon

Throughout my career as a politician, I applied one fundamental principle to my politics. Honesty.

An honest position, with all its complications and nuances, is always preferable to a simple but dishonest narrative, even if that position does not fully align with your interests. That is because honesty and nuance nurture the relationship on which our entire democratic system depends, while dishonesty corrodes it, creating fertile ground for populists and demagogues to take hold.

Honesty is also something I have constantly asked my leaders to grant me, before as an MP and now as a citizen.

Five years ago, I wrote in this paper that our community deserved to be treated as adults throughout the Brexit process. I argued that we needed a more open conversation about the risks we faced, the compromises that would be required, and the limits of what could realistically be achieved. I did so not to weaken Gibraltar’s position but to strengthen it, because I have always believed that honesty builds trust, trust builds unity, and unity is Gibraltarians’ superpower.

Tuesday’s exchanges in Parliament made one thing clear to me. Much of the political damage now surrounding the treaty, and the pressure on its main advocate, the Chief Minister, has been self-inflicted.

The language used in the leadup to this moment did not need to be so brazen. Phrases like “sovereignty, jurisdiction and control” or “boots on the ground” were classic Picardo bombast, but they were always going to be problematic. They created expectations that no “real-world” negotiation was never to meet.

Throughout the process he projected a stronger hand than the realities of our position allowed, and framed each stage as if the outcome was firmly within our control. He implied that only his approach, his tone, and his tactics, could safeguard our future, using his position at the negotiating table as one of his most powerful instruments of electoral leverage. This process allowed him to frame himself as the sole and only possible defender of our destiny for close to a decade, something I heavily criticised him for as an MP.

But Gibraltar does not belong to any one leader and international treaties are not delivered by bravado. They are shaped by compromise and constraint, and crucially, by real, tangible leverage. By presenting the process in overly reassuring terms, Fabian Picardo deprived the public of the balanced, mature conversation that this community was perfectly capable of having.

The honest truth, which many of us have long understood, is that once the United Kingdom chose to leave the European Union, Gibraltar’s position became uniquely vulnerable. We faced disruption to the lives of thousands of frontier workers and grave risks to our economy and way of life. If you consider what we have become accustomed to in terms of autonomy, prosperity and quality of life, the threat was existential.

In that context, some concessions were always going to be necessary. That is not weakness, it is just simple reality. As my father taught me, politics should be the art of securing the best possible outcome while avoiding the greatest possible harm.

While the treaty does not read like a Gibraltarian wishlist, it protects British sovereignty, preserves our ability to govern ourselves, and creates space for opportunity and cooperation in a region that has too often been defined by tension. The alternative was clearly far worse. An impoverished Gibraltar, unable to educate its young in the United Kingdom, unable to provide quality public services, unable to attract companies and investment and ultimately unable to sustain itself financially, would be a Gibraltar stripped of the capacity to keep developing its national project.

The choice before us was never between an ideal outcome and the status quo. It was between stability and a real, tangible threat to our survival as a people.

My late father, Sir Joshua, built his political life on common sense and pragmatic politics. He believed that ideology should never outweigh the welfare of human beings, and that leadership was about improving the daily lives of ordinary people, not about clinging to dogma or theatrical posturing. He was loved not because he shouted the loudest, but because he listened carefully, spoke honestly and acted with humanity.

Had the negotiations been described in more measured terms from the beginning, Tuesday’s parliamentary debate might have sounded very different. The treaty would be judged less against slogans and more against the practical question that really matters: does it protect Gibraltar’s future better than the alternatives?

Supporting this treaty does not mean endorsing every decision taken along the way, nor does it mean surrendering any of our identity. It simply means recognising the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be.

Gibraltarians are a realistic, mature and politically astute community and will support this treaty, because we are more than capable of facing the hard truths of real-world politics.
If only our leaders had treated us as such.

Marlene Hassan Nahon is a former Leader of Together Gibraltar and a former MP.