Brexit’s unknown consequences

In an interview with the Financial Times last week, the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, pointed to an obvious conclusion about the UK’s departure from the bloc. Obvious, at least, to most of us here.

He was asked about Brexit seven years after the 2016 referendum that changed the UK’s course and, with it, Gibraltar’s, a vote that a growing number of people in the UK are regretting.
The latest YouGov polls show 57% of the UK public now believe the UK was wrong to leave the EU. Of those polled, 58% said they would want to rejoin the EU.

“It seems to me that Brexit is an issue of permanent debate in the UK,” Mr Barnier told the FT.

“That means Brexit was not so clear.”

“From the very first day, the UK ministers not only underestimated the consequences of Brexit — they did not know the consequences of Brexit.”

That last line certainly has the ring of truth of it as far as Gibraltar is concerned, not that there was much that could be done here once the referendum was called.

I read the FT interview a couple of days after watching former UK Prime Minister Lady Theresa May interviewed on stage by Chief Minister Fabian Picardo during the recent literary festival.

Mr Picardo thanked Lady May for being “in the trenches” with Gibraltar after the referendum result to secure a post-Brexit framework that worked for this community.

Lady May herself acknowledged too that, while the UK felt “very much” that Gibraltar was British by choice, “it's important that we remember that” and “follow that through”.

But listening to her, I was reminded of an earlier observation by Mr Barnier in a 2021 memoir about his time as Brexit negotiator, this time specifically about Gibraltar. In a diary entry on April 12, 2017, he reflected on how “no one had really looked closely at the consequences of Brexit” for Gibraltar.

That also has more than a ring of truth to it.

Despite the evident regret in the UK and polls suggesting most Britons now wish Brexit had never happened, Lady May said she believed reversing that vote was not an option.

“I don't think it's about rejoining the EU, but I think we do need to ensure we have a good relationship with our EU allies,” she said, adding the current PM, Rishi Sunak, had fostered a “noticeably different” relationship with the bloc to his immediate predecessors.

“I think he has actively been working with other countries in Europe and we are seeing that better relationship,” she said, pointing to recent developments including on the Horizon research programme and the Windsor Framework for Northern Ireland.

“I think that the relationship is beginning to become one which is a better one for the future, because, let's face it, they are our nearest geographical allies.”

“I think we will see that better relationship with the EU coming forward, but not a rejoining of the EU.”

The UK rejoining the EU would not solve Gibraltar’s problems in any event. Were it to happen, Spain would likely seek an unacceptable sovereignty price for Gibraltar’s return ticket.
But outside the EU, we are the only British territory connected to the Schengen landmass by a land border, and our future remains uncertain.

On a Rock three miles by one, the border is not just a key element of our economy, it’s a pressure valve too for a community which, according to initial census data revealed last week, has now grown to 38,000 residents.

In or out, the challenge for Gibraltar remains the same, though we can take some comfort in the thaw in UK/EU relations under Mr Sunak, and the return of a Socialist government in Madrid, however controversial Pedro Sanchez’s route back to La Moncloa.

Last week, a day after being sworn in as Foreign Minister after a hotly contested election in Spain, Jose Manuel Albares said all sides in the Gibraltar negotiation want to “move forward quickly” and that a deal was close.

Let us hope that is the case because seven years on, the Brexit levanter still hangs over our heads.

One might be forgiven for thinking all of this isn’t such a big deal. For most of us, nothing much has changed since 2016 after all.

But that would be a huge mistake because the fluidity at the border that we currently enjoy is down to temporary goodwill arrangements pending the outcome of treaty talks.

Only if those talks fail will the cold, blunt reality of a hard Brexit become evident.

We have regular reminders of what that will mean on the ground. Just look at the queues last week as Spain, for whatever reason, conducted close checks on everyone crossing, causing delays not just for non-EU nationals but for Spanish and other EU citizens caught in the same queue.

Immigration controls are about reciprocity and there is no room for fast-track arrangements that expedite transit for some people depending on their passport while others queue.

Negotiators would do well to pause and think about that reality, perhaps even picture themselves sandwiched in a moped crush for over an hour after a long day’s work, breathing fumes as they inch forward to the controls.

“It is unacceptable that hardworking people have to endure kilometre-long queues and hours of waiting to be able to return to their homes after their workday, especially when the authorities of their own country are responsible for this situation," said Manuel Triano, the regional secretary of major Spanish union Comisiones Obreras, in a message to Madrid.

"Situations like this take us back to a past we thought we had overcome, where Spanish workers in Gibraltar bore the brunt of the state of relations between governments or the whim of the official on duty."

But as Mr Picardo reminded Parliament last week, this was not just about Spain but about the application of Schengen rules after Brexit.

“There are European issues at play,” he said.

It was a reminder that Gibraltar’s post-Brexit future is part of a far wider picture, and why most of us voted for Remain.

But as negotiators prepare to resume the treaty talks – hopefully sooner rather than later – they should keep at the forefront of their minds that their work is about the lives of thousands of people on both sides of the border who are banking on them getting the deal over the line.

Genteel sparring

Maybe it’s because I’ve sat in her courtroom for so many years covering all sorts of complex, often sensitive cases. But watching Speaker Karen Ramagge, until recently the first female Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court, take the chair for her maiden session in Parliament last week, the overwhelming sensation was one of gravitas.

The MPs were for the most part well behaved. There were a few slip-ups here and there, largely down to a lack of familiarity with terms and procedures. There was a brief flare-up when GSD MP Roy Clinton lost his temper, but it was rapidly defused with a fulsome apology.

The session was, as Chief Minister Fabian Picardo described it, mostly two days of “genteel sparring”, a parliamentary tutorial for the newcomers on both sides of the chamber.

In her interventions, Ms Ramagge left no doubt about who was in charge. When she was unimpressed by what she was hearing, her face said it all. But when she dipped in, she was firm yet moderate in reminding MPs – not just the new ones – to use proper terminology and keep their questions and answers concise and focused.

Like the other “freshers” on either side of the chamber – her word, not mine – she too is learning the ropes. But after years in court, her vast experience of shouldering the burden of judicial responsibility gives her an ample head start, not just in making fair rulings but in reminding MPs of the formality that must underpin all parliamentary exchanges, however fiery.

That’s probably a good thing in a place that has, on past occasions, often slipped into petty, tiresome exchanges at best, visceral, chaotic face-offs at worst. The sense we got last week was that Ms Ramagge will not entertain jousting on those terms.

The Speaker’s role, of course, is different to that of a judge, and the trick for Ms Ramagge will be to keep order while allowing the robust exchanges vital to our parliamentary democracy.

Time will tell how she gets on but after nearly two decades closely watching MPs in the chamber, something tells me she’ll do very well.