THE FOREIGN OFFICE DOESN’T RULE, OK?

Last Tuesday in the Brighton Conference Hall waiting for Ed Miliband to give his speech I found myself sitting next to a Labour Councillor from Waltham Forest.

We exchanged the usual greetings and on hearing I was from Gibraltar we chatted about the Rock. He’d seen in the media the reports on our long hot summer so we discussed that. He was very keen to take a holiday here and so we talked about the various options and so on and so forth.

He then caught me by surprise and asked did the Foreign Office still want to give Gibraltar back to Spain? If it did, how would that pan out? Curiously phrased questions as if Gibraltar belonged to the FO which of course it doesn’t nor has it ever.

My first response was that if given the chance the FO would have handed Gibraltar over to the Spanish many years ago. However I explained that the world had changed and it was a previous Labour Government that had put the locks in place to ensure that Gibraltarians self-determined their own future – as is their right under international law.

Now the Foreign Office would have hardly featured in the summer reporting of the latest crisis with Spain. The headlines were dominated by Cameron staunchly defending Gibraltar and promising to stand by us which he has done. Hague, who is the Foreign Secretary, was equally robust with his counterpart Margallo. The Deputy Prime Minister and Lib-Dem leader, Nick Clegg, is totally onside despite having a Spanish wife and the Labour Party has made it known that if they were in power Gibraltar could count on the same strong support as the Coalition is giving. So where did the Foreign Office spring up from?

Of course the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as it is now known is no more than a ministry staffed by civil servants albeit they believe themselves to be elite ones. It is their job to carry out the wishes and policies of the government of the day. Their power comes from their elected representatives and in theory they advise on but do not create policy.

The Foreign Office, had it had the power and the chance years ago, would certainly have sold Gibraltar out to Spain. However I am not convinced that this policy was driven by a dislike for Gibraltarians but rather for the desire for an ordered world. Gibraltar would always be a stumbling block in relations between London and Madrid. If it was given away the red on the international map would hardly have lessened and the British and Spanish Governments could have got on with wider matters of mutual interest.

Of course the days when people or bits of Rock could be traded for the benefit of the past colonial power are long gone but the sentiments may still linger in certain offices in Whitehall especially the Foreign Office. I have read reports of Gibraltarians in the past having being talked of in disparaging terms in the corridors of power and of some of our Governors having been accused of going native. Certainly a number of past Governors are good friends of Gibraltar to this day. However in 2013 it is the UK’s and our own Government that holds sway and relations between elected politicians of all parties are good. It is the Government that rules and not the Foreign Office.

Yet it is intriguing that a councillor from a London Borough should believe that Gibraltar is a chattel of the Foreign Office. What is even more astonishing is that he should believe that if its Mandarins determined our future was with Spain that would be set in stone with Gibraltarians having no say in the matter.

It was a conversation out of a bygone age.

WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO SAY ON GIBRALTAR?

August is fast approaching and I have my summer reading ready. When I was in London I bought a copy of Alastair Campbell’s latest diaries on Blair and the Iraq War (The Burden of Power: the countdown to Iraq). By chance I flicked though it last night to see what references there were on Gibraltar: three to be exact and very brief: my first reaction was they were of little interest.

However having slept on it I awoke this morning to realise Blair’s first reference to Gibraltar was in fact dynamite. I then read our Government’s statement on the Guardia Civil incursion on Friday and I believe in a very roundabout way there is a link.

Back to Blair who in Campbell’s book is preparing for a press conference with the Spanish premier José María Aznar. Blair asks Aznar: “What do you want me to say on Gibraltar?” Before Aznar can reply Campbell jumps in as shouts “Don’t answer that!”

Last night I took another sip of my gin and tonic and moved on. This morning I found the reference again whilst drinking my green tea and needed nothing stronger. Here is the British Prime Minister of the day asking the Spanish Prime Minister what Madrid wants him to say about Gibraltar. My God, thank goodness Campbell was there to stop the answer although we know from the joint sovereignty debacle that followed just what it was!

Now a lot of water has flowed under Westminster Bridge since then but in some ways relations between Gibraltar, the UK and Spain have not changed one jot. Spain, especially PP governed Spain, is still the bully and it knows that every time it give Gibraltar a Chinese burn No.6 has to run to Whitehall for help.

The problem is Westminster and Whitehall are none too keen to get involved. Anglo - Spanish relations always come before Anglo – Gibraltar relations simply because Spain is more important to the UK as a trading and political partner than Gibraltar is. I suspect as I write a Mandarin in the Foreign Office is dusting down a formal protest to Madrid on Friday’s incident: it will be presented and accepted with all due ceremony then put in the cardboard box with all the others and promptly forgotten about.

Let me give you two scenarios: on Friday night a French Gendarmerie patrol boat boarded a UK vessel in British waters off Dover and under darkness took the boat to Calais where the innocent crew where held for two hours and then released. Result: all hell would have broken loose, the TV news channels would be giving blanket coverage, politically and diplomatically Britain would be breathing fire!

OK, on Friday night an Argentinean naval patrol boarded a Falkland’s vessel in the island’s waters and took it under darkness to Buenos Aires where the British crew were held and questioned before being released. Result: Britain would be jumping up and down at the UN and Royal Navy patrols would be beefed up.

So too last Friday: a Guardia Civil armed patrol boat boards a British vessel in Gibraltar’s water and takes it in darkness to Algeciras where after two hours questioning the crew and boat are finally released.

Is Britain breathing fire? No!

Is it receiving 24 hours UK news coverage? No!

Has Britain increased its Royal Navy presence? No!

Is Britain’s ambassador to the UN lodging an urgent protest? No!

The key difference between the first and second scenarios and Gibraltar is they took place in British home waters and the oil rich waters of the Falklands. Gibraltar is adrift, alone, in the waters of the bay – albeit it British Territorial ones, which some Whitehall Mandarin thought were off Algeria, so left to Spain under the EU’s environmental plans.

And so we return to the ghost of a British Prime Minister asking his Spanish counterpart – “What do you want me to say on Gibraltar?”

The fact is the waters, airspace and borders of Gibraltar will only be fully secure when Gibraltar and not Britain defends them. Gibraltar has to stand up alone to the Spanish bully and until it does the pinching and punching will go on and on and on. The ultimate challenge is will Gibraltar take on this nasty bully because London won’t.