UK again reaffirms treaty commitment to Gibraltar and its people in Commons

The UK Government will only agree to a UK/EU treaty for Gibraltar that protects the Rock’s British sovereignty and military autonomy and provides post-Brexit certainty for its people, the House of Commons was told on Tuesday.

The message was not new but was repeated by Stephen Doughty, the UK’s Minister for Europe, North America and the Overseas Territories, in response to a "topical question” from Conservative MP Martin Vickers.

It came a day after Spain’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Jose Manuel Albares, told the BBC’s Newsnight current affairs programme that the treaty negotiation “is not resolved yet”, a position later echoed by Chief Minister Fabian Picardo in comments to this newspaper.

“We need to solve the issue of Gibraltar in order to have a full European Union/UK relationship,” Mr Albares told Newsnight, a comment that was interpreted by some UK opposition MPs and media as Spain putting Gibraltar’s sovereignty into the mix just days before a May 19 summit where the UK and the EU are expected to announce a deal on defence and security.

Spain’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs made clear that Mr Albares was referring to the Gibraltar treaty negotiation, but the interview triggered a flurry of activity including the question in the Commons.

Mr Vickers asked Mr Doughty for an update on the negotiation and whether it would be concluded before the UK/EU reset.

He asked too whether the minister would confirm that the views and interests of the people of Gibraltar would be paramount.

Mr Doughty replied: “Well, he can be absolutely assured on that latter point.”

“In fact, I spoke to the Chief Minister of Gibraltar just this morning.”

“We’ve been working closely with him and indeed with our EU and Spanish counterparts.”

“All sides agree on the importance of concluding a treaty as soon as possible, and we're working closely with all the parties in that regard.”

“We will only conclude an agreement that protects sovereignty and UK military autonomy, and provides certainty for the people of Gibraltar and secures their future prosperity.”

“And we will endeavour to achieve that in due course.”

Speaking on Times Radio earlier on Tuesday morning, Mr Picardo said the negotiation was focused on agreeing mechanisms for the fluidity of people and goods across the border after Brexit.

“We are not dealing with the issue of sovereignty,” he said.

“In fact, successive Spanish foreign ministers - Señor [Alfonso] Dastis of the Partido Popular, Señor [Josep] Borrel of the Socialist Party, Ms [Arantxa Gonzalez] Laya of the Socialist Party and now Mr Albares - have repeatedly said that the issue of sovereignty is not on the table in relation to this discussion.”

“When [Mr Albares] is talking yesterday to Nick [Watt] on Newsnight about the issue of Gibraltar, he's talking about the issues in the trade deal and in the immigration deal that we've been working so hard on over almost five years now.”

Mr Picardo said negotiators were “down to the last handful of issues” yet to be resolved in a “very nuanced negotiation”.

Mr Picardo said “we can now see the finish posts” but was reminded by interviewer Stig Abell that he had described being “within kissing distance” of a treaty a year ago.

“This is a smooch and a half isn’t it?” Mr Abell said.

“It's a long marathon,” Mr Picardo replied.

“Believe me, when I started this, I weighed 110 kilos. Now I weigh 80 and I run 10 kilometres a day.”

“So I'm starting to learn how difficult it is to run a marathon.”

“And I think we've now entered the stadium.”

“We can see the finish line, and with the help of successive UK governments of blue and red complexions, we will get there in a deal that is good for the people of Gibraltar, who I represent and matter the most to me, and of course the people of the United Kingdom and the people of Europe, in particular the people of Spain and the area around Gibraltar in the Campo de Gibraltar.”

Asked what people in Gibraltar told him of Brexit and the process it had unleashed on Gibraltar, Mr Picardo said “they describe it with a pejorative term that is followed by the word show, and that is what Brexit has meant to Gibraltar for the last decade, since 2016, when we've had to deal with the issues of Brexit.”

“But we're British. We voted in the Brexit referendum. We accept, of course, the overwhelming view of the British people.”

“In this instance, it was to leave the European Union, not by a massive margin, but by enough that the referendum issue was resolved.”

“And so we have to deal with the consequences and make the most of them.”

The Chief Minister said Gibraltar and the UK had worked “very well” with successive Spanish governments but that he understood why this did not make news headlines.

“The easy thing to make a headline on is to think that they're coming for our sovereignty,” he said.

“It doesn't make such a good headline to say we're working very well together, that we've kept the frontier flowing, that we've worked with the EU together.”

“It's been a difficult negotiation. We've had fractious moments, we've had positive moments.”

“Because although we're not dealing with sovereignty, we are, of course, dealing with issues which relate to how we can regulate our market in goods, how we can regulate our issues in immigration.”

“And in those respects, when you're going to form part of a much larger club, you have to change the way that you do things and you have to change it in a way that is going to continue to enable you to succeed economically and is going to enable you to have those controls that you want to have on immigration.”

“Because you want to be able to still regulate who is going to reside where you live and some elements of how people arrive from third countries etc.”

“So it's a difficult negotiation because it's technically difficult, not because there are sovereignty issues in play, which are the issues that have always raised their head on Gibraltar.”

“So when the Spanish Foreign Minister goes on British television and says, rightly and correctly, we still haven't resolved the issue of Gibraltar, immediately the spark is that means sovereignty, when in fact the issue is the negotiation on the trade deal on goods and the immigration space issues.”

Mr Picardo said people on the Rock understood that Brexit was not a problem of Gibraltar’s making but that it had to be resolved for successive generations of Gibraltarians.

He said they told him to “never give up and don't give anything that matters up”.

“And that's the mantra that we've been pursuing,” he added.

“We've got an electoral mandate to pursue that and I think we're going to get there.”

The Chief Minister said that as the UK headed to what he hoped would be “a very positive reset” with the EU, Gibraltar “will form part of that orbit”, although the fact Gibraltar is a different jurisdiction in law will mean “a slightly different deal” for the Rock.

And he said his focus was on future generations.

“I think of my children a lot when the going gets tough in these situations,” Mr Picardo said.

“I want them to be able to access the European Union. I want them to be able to ski in Spain and surf in Spain. I want them to be able to travel to Paris, go to Rome, all the things we used to be able to enjoy as European citizens, and this deal will give them again in different measure.”

On Monday night as a Newsnight pundits debated the interview with Mr Albares, one of the panellists was former DUP leader Baroness Arlene Foster, who had travelled to Gibraltar on numerous occasions as an MP.

“The one difference between Northern Ireland and Gibraltar is, actually, Gibraltar has been very much in the middle of the negotiations with the UK Government, whereas Northern Ireland was left by the side,” she said.

“They are in the middle of it and they're saying that they won't give way on the fundamentals, which of course is sovereignty.”

“But what they do want to see is a deal.”

“They're not going to rush it.”

“They're just going to take their time and they want to get the right deal, and I think that's absolutely the right thing to do.”