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New era for Gibraltar with removal of border controls with Spain

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Re: New era for Gibraltar with removal of border controls with Spain

#51

Post by madeofpalk »

iso1631 wrote: post #33
amunozo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I am Spanish, so I might be biased) I think the twp main problems are not who Gibraltar belongs to, but 1. Gibraltar is that it is kind of a tax haven next to one of th areas of Spain with more poverty and unemployment, which is also one of the main drug entrances of the country. This combibation is explosive and really problematic for the people in the Campo de Gibraltar, especially the youth. 2. The people of Gibr…

I assume you're also in favour of Ceuta and Melilla being given to Morocco over the wishes of the people whos ancestors have lived there for centuries?

I mean they said pretty clearly that they should respect the wishes of sovereignty for Gibraltar, so presumably they would also extend the same to Ceuta and Melilla.

I think in a very abstract sense I agree that exclaves like this are weird and it would be cleaner if they didn't happen (Gibraltar returned to Spain, Ceuta and Melilla returned to Morocco), but that's thinking of this as a systems design problem rather than one that cares about people. I recognise that this is not an empathetic view, and my own opinion is worthless and I hold onto it very weakly.

Re: New era for Gibraltar with removal of border controls with Spain

#52

Post by iso1631 »

iainmerrick wrote: post #21
phoronixrly wrote: post #8

> After years of negotiation involving Spain, the EU and the UK, the solution has been to align Gibraltar with the European customs union and the Schengen European free travel zone. > Travellers arriving from countries outside Schengen, such as the UK, will have to show their passports to Gibraltarian and Spanish officials at the territory's airport and port. So an L for the UK as Gibraltar has again freedom of movem…

It's really ridiculous how little discussion there was about places like Gibraltar and Northern Ireland before the Brexit vote. Looks like NI voted ~55% remain and Gibraltar ~95% remain, but too bad, England voted ~53% leave, so screw all you little overseas territories with actual land borders who are most directly impacted.

And places like London, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, York, Warwick voted 60% to remain but still got taken out. Places like Oxford and Cambridge were over 70% remain.

What should have happened was the ability for any person to retain their European citizenship, or if under 18 choose on their 18th birthday. Then the remainers would not have had their rights stripped away.

The catch being if more than 50% of adults took this up, then the UK would not leave.

Re: New era for Gibraltar with removal of border controls with Spain

#53

Post by unkeen »

obayesshelton wrote: post #7
Laurel1234 wrote: post #4

It'd be even easier if Gibraltar is returned to Spain to whom it belongs.

In that context America should be given back, Alaska should be given back, Australia should be given back... the list goes on.

Well, in theory, they should! :) Imagine a world where expansionist acts of violent injustice could be undone.

Re: New era for Gibraltar with removal of border controls with Spain

#54

Post by rmunn »

unkeen wrote: post #35
iso1631 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It belongs to the people who live there. While you may think places like Point Roberts should be forcibly moved to Canada, or Ceuta should be forcibly moved to Morocco, I'm of the opinion of self determination, as is the global view based on the United Nations, who recognizes self-determination as the right of all peoples to freely determine their political status and pursue their economic, social, and cultural devel…

If it belongs to the people who live there, why does Britain have any say in their matters?

Why does Britain have any say in the people who live in, say, Liverpool? Because that's historically been British territory. So what's the difference? Only real difference I can see is length of history (a few hundred years vs. nearly a thousand years). But as far as I'm concerned, a few hundred years vs. nearly a thousand years doesn't make much difference. I'd argue that any territory that has belonged to country X for longer than all of its inhabitants have been alive has a pretty fair claim to be historical territory of country X, and should continue being part of country X unless there's a very good reason otherwise. (Such as a valid treaty, a clear referendum, and so on).

It gets all complicated and messy when war is involved, of course. I'm talking about peaceful transfers of ownership here.

Re: New era for Gibraltar with removal of border controls with Spain

#55

Post by PaulRobinson »

unkeen wrote: post #3

From a purely geographical point of view, it is so absurd that there is even a debate about to which land mass Gibraltar "belongs" to. As a colonialist, I would find it very difficult to justify my own behaviour nowadays.

The British government have a strong, well-established (since ~1950), and arguably inflexible attitude towards "right to self-determination".

Meaning: the people who live in a place get to decide who governs them and their society.

People in Gibraltar, The Falklands, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland all have different wants, needs and asks of the UK, and the UK honours all of them. There are other overseas territories with different relationships, plus the Commonwealth too.

If that ask changes (and in Northern Ireland it likely will in our lifetimes, the others less so), the governance will change.

Sometimes there is an ask for a closer relationship through the British Commonwealth (such as South Africa). Sometimes there is an ask for the UK to go away, thanks but no thanks (such as Malta). Each relationship is handled individually, but through a lens of self-determination. That's the priority in the FCO, in Parliament, in UK media. If a tiny nation wants to be British, the UK will go to war over it despite it making little sense (Falklands). If a tiny nation wants independence despite tactical advantage for UK to keep it, independence will be fought for (Malta happened, Diego Garcia is a WIP - watch this space). Where there is division (Northern Ireland), the majority view is observed, but with democratic and cultural structures created to try and make sure minority views have a voice in that governance.

That said, there is a caveat: observance of treaties tend to over-ride local preference in some cases, so if there is a legal argument to ignore the wishes of the locals, those wishes may be ignored: Hong Kong is the most prominent example of this in recent times (locals seemed to want to stay British, China said the 100-year agreement was up and there'd be no renewal, end of, so China it became).

Diego Garcia is another example, which has got messy because of the Whitehouse not understanding the UK's perverse inclination towards local democracy and the right to self-determination (see also non-UK entities the Whitehouse has not understood well: Greenland, absurd noises about Canada, and so on).

When able, the UK has consistently been committed to restoring governance to a local population's preferred model peacefully since ~1950 (India being the last real mess), and if the people of Gibraltar want to be governed by the Spanish, they'd be governed by the Spanish within ~2-3 years.

The idea that local people should have no say in this because "it's obvious" who "they belong to", is the colonialist notion here. A land isn't about geography. It's about people. It took a long time for the UK to understand this. Eventually they did. Most European colonial powers did. Others are still trying to catch up, it seems.

Re: New era for Gibraltar with removal of border controls with Spain

#56

Post by maccard »

Pragmata wrote: post #32
kdheiwns wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gibraltar has been part of the UK for over 300 years and the people are all UK citizens. Forcing those people out or seizing the land from them would be the definition of colonialism, yes. And exclaves exist all around the world. Geography has never really meant anything in national terms. Spain has a piece of land on Africa and I don't think they plan on giving that up.

>Gibraltar has been part of the UK for over 300 years and the people are all UK citizens. Is this your standard for whether or not something is colonialism? Do you apply it consistently throughout, even when its inconvenient for you?

Each of these countries, enclaves, territories, settlements, borders have massive amounts of history that shape why they are the way they are, and attempting to say "this rule should apply equally to all of them" shows a huge misunderstanding of why they are unique.

Re: New era for Gibraltar with removal of border controls with Spain

#58

Post by was_a_dev »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #49
was_a_dev wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> freedom of movement to the EU (that the British hated so much) A generalisation that only applied to, at most, 52% of the voting British public

> at most, 52% of the voting British public Indeed. And, At a point in time ten years ago. In voters who skewed older. See the Voter Flow diagram: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1pj8kzd/voters_and_...

What a brilliantly depressing graphic

Re: New era for Gibraltar with removal of border controls with Spain

#59

Post by PaulRobinson »

Laurel1234 wrote: post #4

It'd be even easier if Gibraltar is returned to Spain to whom it belongs.

Not according to the people who live there. Or in fact, Spain, who ceded it to the UK hundreds of years ago.

Or do you think Spain has a legal right based on geographic proximity to enforce a culture on those people despite existing treaties, laws, culture and democracy?

Re: New era for Gibraltar with removal of border controls with Spain

#60

Post by nephihaha »

iso1631 wrote: post #52
iainmerrick wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really ridiculous how little discussion there was about places like Gibraltar and Northern Ireland before the Brexit vote. Looks like NI voted ~55% remain and Gibraltar ~95% remain, but too bad, England voted ~53% leave, so screw all you little overseas territories with actual land borders who are most directly impacted.

And places like London, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, York, Warwick voted 60% to remain but still got taken out. Places like Oxford and Cambridge were over 70% remain. What should have happened was the ability for any person to retain their European citizenship, or if under 18 choose on their 18th birthday. Then the remainers would not have had their rights stripped away. The catch being if more than 50% of adults…

Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain. Wales was more mixed.

Northern Ireland got the best deal of the three. Thanks to the Good Friday Agreement, people there can get Irish (and therefore EU) passports.

This is a perennial issue in Scottish politics, but Scotland, unlike Northern Ireland, and maybe Kent, does not have a land border with the EU.

My personal hope was that the UK would remain in the EU, but both the EU and UK would take a look at themselves. Instead both are heading more and more towards censorship and heavy control of their citizens.

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