Westminster's political crisis has deep implications for the Rock

I bumped into a well-connected lawyer a few nights ago and his views on Brexit left me cold.
“I don’t agree with Boris, but you’ve got to admire him,” he said.
“At least he’s standing his ground. I’m a lawyer and I know about negotiations. You can’t show weakness.”
“Look at May. What did she achieve? Nothing. Business needs certainty, don’t you understand that? With Johnson, at least we might get that.”
Like most firmly-held views on Brexit, that opinion is unlikely to age well. After this week, certainty and Mr Johnson are not words that go well together.
In a whirlwind week in Westminster, Mr Johnson has not just lost his slim parliamentary majority in the House of Commons, he has lost many of the political heavyweights in his party too. They opposed his strategy of suspending parliament and paid the price by being removed. From Ken Clarke to Nicholas Soames and Dominic Grieve, the Conservative party appears no longer to be a welcome home for calm, moderate, serious voices. Substance appears to have been replaced with bluster and blind faith.
In Mr Johnson, the UK has a Prime Minister who has lost the confidence not just of many in his own party, but of a majority of MPs in parliament too.
A cross-party alliance has pushed legislation to block a ‘no deal’ Brexit, something Mr Johnson and his allies believe will weaken the UK’s negotiating hand in Brussels. Never mind that Brussels has made clear there will be no major change to the deal agreed by Theresa May.
As Ken Clarke, the father of the House of Commons, put it this week, the EU is desperate to get a deal, "…but not so desperate that they're going to accept terms which will cause chaos in Northern Ireland…and shatter the normal rules which hold together the single market and the customs union on which they are based."
"The Prime Minister," he added, "has thrown down dramatic conditions which he must know make any sensible negotiations pointless unless he changes his direction."
Mr Johnson’s plans to call an early election have also suffered a blow in parliament, with Labour reluctant to be drawn into an electoral face-off until the risk of a hard Brexit is neutralised in law.
Parliamentary debate has descended into tiresome exchanges where views are increasingly entrenched. The shifts, such as they are, stem from arcane parliamentary processes that even MPs appear to struggle to understand and keep up with.
The ramifications of this Commons theatre for Gibraltar simply cannot be understated, and are exacerbated by the political uncertainty in Spain, where the Socialist caretaker Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, faces the prospect of yet another general election after failing to reach a pact with Unidas Podemos to form a coalition government.
The Spanish dimension is significant because whatever shape Brexit takes, maintaining good relations with Spain will be a vital element of Gibraltar’s future outside the EU. But how do you build relations with your closest neighbour without the certainty of knowing who you will be dealing with in the immediate future?
In London and Madrid, everything is in flux. We are caught between a country that, despite its democratic credentials, continues to obsess about our homeland, and another that is so far adrift it risks destroying the very Union that makes us British. And if Great Britain falls apart, where does that leave Gibraltar?
There is no magic wand here, no special deal available. In the end, we may have to dig deep into our reserves of stoicism, ingenuity and courage, much as we have been doing to date throughout this whole mess.
The Brexit nightmare is like a sweltering Levanter that simply won’t go away, but people and businesses, concerned as they are, have been getting on with their lives and planning as best they can. What else are we supposed to do?
But there is also simmering anger and frustration beneath the surface, and that is what became evident in the conversation with my lawyer friend on Main Street. Increasingly for many here, the best option now appears to be to push ahead, hard Brexit or not, and put this episode behind us.
We should guard against that sentiment, enticing as it is. I have yet to hear a convincing argument as to why Gibraltar would be better off outside the EU, with or without a deal. And neither should we yield to the siren calls of those who, freed from the obligations of EU regulations, would return us to a past we have worked hard collectively to leave behind.
Remember too that if we do leave on October 31, this is just the end of the first phase. After withdrawal comes negotiation for a future relationship. If we thought part one was difficult, we had best brace and hold tight for what is around the corner.
For now, the main focus is on Westminster, where opposition parties have finally come together to present a united front against a hard Brexit.
Whether they succeed remains to be seen but in all likelihood, Mr Johnson’s political future - and with it the future of the UK and, by extension, Gibraltar - looks set to be put in the hands of the UK electorate.
How they will vote is anyone’s guess, but one thing seems evident. Outside Westminster, the country is as divided as ever.
Absent a second referendum - and this is still a possibility, let us be clear - we must face the reality that after three years of intense political drama, we may not have a voice in the final, crucial stage.
This community was rightly included in the 2016 referendum. We turned out en masse and voted overwhelmingly for Remain, conscious of the inescapable reality that we are better off inside the EU than outside.
The past two years, during which the EU - surprise, surprise - backed Spain over the issue of Gibraltar, have turned many people here off Remain. But the vast majority of us still believe the EU is a force for good, despite its failure to support a small community that has shown its commitment to the European project through its votes and actions.
If there were a re-run of the 2016 referendum tomorrow, most of us would grit our teeth and vote the same as the first time.
The UK is faced with an unprecedented political crisis and a Brexit general election is now likelier than ever.
The outcome will have deep repercussions here, for better or worse.
We may have no direct voice in that process, but we can and must ensure our friends in Westminster keep us on the political radar, and that the UK Government continues to stand by this community.
And though it is not of our making, we must prepare for the potential upheaval ahead.