This
year is the 300 th anniversary of the Treaty of Utrecht. Instead of holding
events to commemorate not celebrate the signing of the same our efforts would
have been better expended in dumping it in the international courts of law.
The
Treaty of Utrecht is now a dusty historical document. The only bits that is
clung to by Spain are the paragraphs relating to Gibraltar. However it is clear
also that the Foreign Office in London also honours this discredited piece of parchment
as has been demonstrated at the UN.
I
also sure there is a cupboard in the archives of the Foreign Office in which a
copy of the Treaty of Utrecht is kept, next to the packet of Hobnobs. On the
anniversary of its signing each year the Spanish Ambassador will be summoned to
Whitehall and will be accompanied to the cupboard by a high ranking Mandarin,
an Old Etonian and High Anglican, and together they will sing hosannas,
genuflect then wave incense before the text. They’ll then have a Hobnob each and
sip a cup of English Breakfast tea.
This
old battered document has a negative impact on the relations between London and
Gibraltar. For all the political rhetoric by the British Government and our own
over Gibraltarians right to self-determine their own future, there will be
those who wave the Treaty and speak in respectful tones of its wording. It is
the hooded cobra weaving before Gibraltarians eyes holding us in its glare and
undermining Gibraltar’s future security.
We
are constantly told by members of our Government and Gibraltarian legal eagles
who know about such things that the Treaty of Utrecht would not stand up in an
international court of law. We were told this week that Spain will not take its
claim over British Gibraltar Territorial Waters to law because it knows it
would lose. This is nothing new. We have known for years that Spanish lawyers
who deal in international law have said that the Treaty would be laughed out of
court. If this is so then why has not the Gibraltar Government of the day grasped
this nettle and had it consigned to the history books by going to court so
Gibraltarians can get on with their lives without Madrid quoting its claims
left, right and centre.
Taking
the Treaty to court is a win – win situation. If the court indeed backed the
Treaty and ruled it should stand then all we would have to do is ensure that
the links between Gibraltar and Britain are so Rock solid it would never be
“returned” to Spain. Integration on the style of Ceuta and Melilla comes to
mind. If on the other hand the court comes down on the side of the opinion of
the majority of international lawyers and the Treaty is indeed dead, then so
too are Spain’s claims over Gibraltar.
Until
the day such a court ruling is sought, and Madrid’s Fascist ambitions over
Gibraltar and its people are shown to be just that, then Gibraltarians will
live in uncertainty. It will be the fault of Gibraltar because we have done
nothing to end this farce.
