Hassan Nahon urges ‘constructive and mature’ politics ahead of election

Together Gibraltar Leader Marlene Hassan Nahon has called on the public to back the “fledgling political force” in the run up to a general election later this year.

The Independent MP was speaking as part of a New Year’s message broadcasted on GBC last night in which she set out the key issues her party will look to pursue politically in 2019.

Among these were the dominating force of Brexit but also civil rights and the environment.

On Brexit Ms Hassan Nahon said she has steered clear from the type of ‘horn locking’ the GSD had engaged in with the Government over the agreements and directives that are being worked on.

She said: “I have always said that I believe that we should support our government and give it the political space it needs to navigate our Brexit fallout without petty politicking, especially when we are all equally invested in the outcome and we are still quite far from a clear overall position emanating from the UK that we can evaluate and negotiate.”

She added that Together Gibraltar believes that the most “constructive and mature approach” at present is to focus on long term contingency arrangements on matters relating to business, trade and industry, and frontier challenges “in order to genuinely reinvent ourselves and develop a new way of working our economy post Brexit, deal or no deal”.

Additionally, Ms Hassan Nahon called for workers rights to be addressed so as to reflect “the modern society that we are.”

“It is an inescapable reality that the current state of play with long-term supply and agency workers on zero hour contracts is less than justified and even borders on immoral,” she said.

The new political party will hold its first Annual General Meeting on February 5 at the John Mackintosh Hall where its policies, vision and ideas will be set out.

The full opinion piece can be read on page four of our print or e-editions.