Brexit on the tongue

For the past 10 years the word Brexit has featured heavily in our day-to-day lives, not just because it features heavily in the news but also the impact it would have on us personally.

For years I’ve had to report on Brexit issues happening in Gibraltar and how it would affect Gibraltar, but now I’m looking at it from the perspective of someone who is running a local food business.

For years it featured in every other article, and now it features in every other conversation or decision to be made.

And in all that time the uncertainty surrounding Brexit raised a lot of questions about what the future for Gibraltar would look like.

I may have a lot of time, or my curiosity levels remain unchanged from when I was a child but I found myself in a rabbit hole wondering about the timeline of Brexit and where the phrase originated from and how it came to be.

The phrase Brexit was coined by Peter Wilding, the director and founder of the British Influence think tank in May 2012, some eight months before the then Prime Minister David Cameron announced he would be holding a referendum.

“Unless a clear view is pushed that Britain must lead in Europe at the very least to achieve the completion of the single market then the portmanteau for Greek euro exit might be followed by another sad word, Brexit,” he wrote.

In 2016 Mr Wilding was contacted by the Oxford English Dictionary when it added ‘Brexit’ to its volumes.

He told the BBC he took his inspiration from Grexit, the term used for Greece’s possible exit from the eurozone in 2012.

The suffix “-exit” stuck and in Gibraltar the phrase ‘Gibexit’ has been used to reflect the Rock’s own withdrawal from the European Union.

According to Collins Dictionary, Brexit was its word of the year in 2016, which had an increase in use by 3,400% in the year that the EU referendum was held.

It has been 10 years since the EU referendum was held and that was an interesting period in Gibraltar’s history.

But this is not just one of Gibraltar’s landmark events that changed the course of history for the Rock.

I caught up with GBC’s View Point programme from last Thursday where Gibraltar’s present-day and former Chief Ministers were invited to the panel to discuss the draft treaty which was published last month.

Over the two-hour programme not only did Chief Minister Fabian Picardo, Sir Joe Bossano, Sir Peter Caruna and Adolfo Canepa discuss present day politics but the evolution of Gibraltar’s relation both with Spain and Britain since the end of the war.

Last month a draft version of the Treaty was published for all to see and analyse.

Some two weeks ago the Gibraltar Parliament gave unanimous support to a motion calling on the UK to enter into the UK/EU treaty on Gibraltar, triggering the ratification process in the UK Parliament.

Going forward, Gibraltar is waiting with bated breath to see what this treaty means for all of use living on the Rock.

It’s not only raised questions within the business community and how many of us run our business and where we will be able to purchase our goods from in the future, but it has also raised questions about the political and sovereignty implications.

But for those making decisions and holding discussions over Brexit, the treaty is a positive step forward for Gibraltar’s future.

“What this treaty does is that in this critical moment, it ensures that instead of being put back inside a gilded cage, we have access to that whole wide world which is before us which is both real and is virtual, and is as much of an opportunity, as it is a danger,” Mr Picardo said during his appearance on View Point.