DUFF THE DUFFER SPEAKS ON GIBRALTAR

If you have heard the sound of weeping and gnashing of teeth if may have been Gibraltar’s hard-working MEP Sir Graham Watson fearing his re-election chances next May have been washed down the pan by one Andrew Duff MEP.

Of course if it wasn’t for the fact that Sir Graham is a gentleman the sounds of agony might have been the said Duff being run through with the Lib-Dem knight’s sword.

The Lib Dem vote in Gibraltar could have been dealt a severe blow thanks to the bizarre article “Goodbye to the Gibraltar Problem” by Andrew Duff MEP – who represents the East of England for that party. It appears Duff has just returned from holiday and given his baldpate probably didn’t wear a sun hat so his brain was fried.

Apparently Duff is an expert on Gibraltar. What’s going on at the moment is a “petty little spat” and all the fault of Fabian Picardo. The MEP tells his readers that “while the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 settled the sovereignty of the rock on Great Britain, nothing was established about control of the coastal sea.”

What Duff fails to tell his readers is that the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea gives Britain the right to claim up to 12 miles for British Gibraltar Territorial Waters although the current limit stands at three miles, the tradition before the treaty came in to force. Even Franco recognised this but not the Duff.

He then goes on to tell his readers: “Uncharacteristically, the Spanish Foreign Minister, Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo, reacted badly. Spanish border controls were increased and traffic delays lengthened. More was threatened, including the imposition of a 50 euro fee for crossing the border. There is certainly good evidence of smuggling and Gibraltar is known to be a centre for money laundering, so strict border controls are wholly reasonable.” Is that the Gibraltar Sir Graham represents?

The solution to the problem, says Duff, lies with the Schengen Agreement. He adds that the British being “proud islanders as we are, have refused to enter the Schengen area” which is of course Spain’s justification for having a border and controls at La Línea. He then goes on: “it would be perfectly possible to negotiate an exemption from the British opt-out for Gibraltar.” There’s more: “If Gibraltar was to join Schengen, the petty nationalists would be deprived of their soap box.”

Seemingly Duff sees no contradiction in the British being allowed to be “proud islanders” but the Gibraltarians not being able to be “proud Gibraltarians”.

Obviously Duff didn’t run his entire article through with the Spanish embassy or his beloved Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo because to paraphrase our Chief Minister - Hell would freeze over before Spain would allow Gibraltar to join Schengen independently. It would even put up one hell of a fight if the UK opted in. Andrew is clearly up the Duff.

The question is will this one man’s Lib Dem view of Gibraltar affect his party’s vote here in next May’s Euro elections. My suspicion is it won’t and here’s why.

First Gibraltarians are both a sophisticated people and electorate. They know that one lose cannon’s words are not necessarily representative of the party he is a member of. Peter Hain is loathed by Gibraltarians but Glyn Ford, who is number 2 on the Labour list for next May’s euro poll, gave sterling service to Gibraltar during his term as our MEP. Gibraltar has many loyal and staunch friends in Labour: it is Hain who is our pain.

Second Sir Graham deserves to be judged on his record and the plain fact is that Gibraltar has no finer or active advocate that this Lib Dem MEP. No other MEP has worked as hard for the Rock as Sir Graham and it would be a travesty if the Duff intervention counted against him.

Credit has also to be given to the Conservative – Lib Dem Government for staunchly defending Gibraltar against Spain’s aggression and our right to self-determination. I wonder what Duff’s “home-grown nationalists” – David Cameron and William Hague – who “were quick to climb on to the bandwagon” make of his words?

If there is justice in this world then the voters in the East of England will dump their duff MEP next May. I am sure the Partido Popular will find room for him in their ranks.

TALKING OF COALITIONS

The first Gibraltarian politician I interviewed was Dr Joseph Garcia. He was then the young leader of the unelected GNP; today he is Deputy Chief Minister and leader of the Liberals who have three MPs. Back in the mid 1990s he was very young. Of course today he is still young: it is me that has grown much older. The GSLP Liberal government is built on a firm coalition so today we talk coalitions.

David Eade: I know many people on the left in the UK are intrigued by the coalition between the GSLP and our Liberals. They are intrigued by the longevity of the pact and how it worked in both opposition and in government. Neal Lawson, the chairperson of the Compass action group which advocates a broad coalition of the left between socialists, liberals, environmentalists etc has studied our left coalition. What would be your message to those seeking a similar alliance to which you have helped create here?

Dr Joseph Garcia: It is often a mistake to attempt to transpose the political situation in one country to that of another in this context because the histories, parties, policies and personalities are not the same. The reality is that there are examples of long-lived political pacts in the Iberian peninsula. The one that springs to mind is Convergenica y Unio who are now the Government of Catalunya. It is made up of two parties, Union Democratica de Catalunya, which is in the Christian Democrat International and Convergencia Democratica de Catalunya, whose members are closely involved in Liberal International. This relationship has worked for them, in Government and in Opposition for decades.

I know that there are many people in the Liberal Democrat party in the UK and also in the Labour party who consider that a broad coalition of the left is the way forward. The political scene in the United Kingdom is unusually fluid at this moment in time so I suppose that anything could happen in the future. There may need to be an overriding national issue which makes it important for parties to cooperate and work together. In

Gibraltar, about 16 years ago now, that issue was that our position in the EU was being seriously undermined by Spain.

DE: The coalition in the UK between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems seems to be a case history in how not to achieve an alliance. Do you think the coalition as constructed after the 2010 election was a mistake?

Dr Garcia: I have friends in the UK Liberal Democrats, and indeed in the Conservative and Labour parties so I have to answer with a degree of caution. I think part of the problem in the UK is that people are not used to coalition politics. The negotiations that follow general elections elsewhere in Europe, when there is no overall majority, provide a considerable degree of give and take and this is very common. I have discussed this over the years with Liberal Ministers in places like the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany where coalitions are the norm. This is not the case in the United Kingdom because the electoral system has traditionally favoured the election of majority Governments. There was no majority Government elected last time round and two parties had to agree on a common programme which meant that both had to make compromises in the wider interests of the country. The case studies of Gibraltar and Catalunya will show that it is much easier if the programme for Government is agreed before the election and not afterwards!

DE: It is interesting the number of people who cut their political teeth with the GNP then the Liberals who have gone on to hold posts in the GSLP, GSD and indeed the PDP. There was dynamism in the party in those early years, do you feel the Liberals have now lost that edge and why did those talents jump ship?

Dr Garcia: Somebody on the other side of the political divide once told me that we started as a political project ten years too early. Maybe he was right who knows!

DE: The GSD recently took issue with the Liberals, as a political party, being allowed a separate platform in a broadcast debate arguing they all but merged with the GSLP. Given the close alliance how do you still define the Liberals as being an independent party from the GSLP?

Dr Garcia: These arguments are well-worn now and over a decade old. Each party has its own members, its own Executive and its own ideas which come together in the parliamentary group as they have done for more than ten years. We have contested elections together in 1999, 2000, 2003, 2007 and 2011. It is probably safe to say that the system is tried and tested.  The Liberal Party brings a very important international dimension to the table as a full voting member of Liberal International, the worldwide

federation of Liberal political parties. We started this work at a senior level soon after the 1996 general election. We have since then had the opportunity to meet and lobby politicians, parliamentarians and Government Ministers from countries all over the world. It is no secret that Simon Hughes MP, the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats and Graham Watson MEP are both influential friends of Gibraltar inside the party. I am also lucky to count them as my own friends. We have seen that the support of the UK Coalition Government on issues like Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands is almost unprecedented. It is why David Cameron and Nick Clegg included the reference to defence of our right to self-determination in the Mid Term review and why the Queen's Speech mentioned the support of this right for the first time in my political memory. These international and particularly European connections, thanks to Graham Watson MEP, are now serving Gibraltar well in Government. This was clear during the high profile visit that the Chief Minister Fabian Picardo and I made to Brussels earlier this year. We are also promoting our contacts with Liberal parties and Governments in other countries.

DE: Finally the million dollar question. Given the closeness of the GSLP and Liberals, given the man or woman on Main Street doesn't know whether say for instance, and I am just choosing two names at random here, Steven Linares is a Liberal or Paul Balban a socialist, to them it is all one government, is there a case for the two parties to merge?

Dr Garcia: There are two parties but one Government. This is the same as it was in Opposition from 1999 until the end of 2011. All that has changed is that we now have the opportunity to put our ideas and our policies into practice. The truth is that the present system has worked and continues to work very well for Gibraltar as a whole. The GSLP/Liberal Government is committed to deliver our manifesto to the electorate and I know that every single one of us is working hard to ensure that this happens.

SIR GRAHAM IS ELECTED TO SPEAK ON OUR BEHALF

I have written a lot over the years about the efforts of the Lib Dem Euro MP, Sir Graham Watson, to battle for Gibraltar in Europe. Indeed he is our most effective representative in Brussels and the European Parliament by a long shot although he is outnumbered by Tories and UKIP MEPs in the South West England and Gibraltar constituency.

Being a Lib Dem he has a firm base in Gibraltar with our own Liberal Party both when that party was in opposition and now it is in government. He has held on-going meetings with his constituents on the Rock and spoken on their behalf for years.

The fact the former Supreme Leader and his successor Daniel Feetham seem not to be able to grasp is that he is elected by Gibraltarians to speak for them in Europe and to raise issues related to the EU. British politicians do not have any mandate to speak for Gibraltar but Sir Graham does.

I met Sir Graham in Gibraltar in the last period of the Supreme Leader’s administration and we discussed his role on representing Gibraltarians. It was an open secret that tensions existed between our Euro MP and the former Supreme Leader for the simple reason that the latter believed he was the only person who should speak for Gibraltarians even if what he said was more often than not at odds with what they wanted.

Never has Sir Graham criticised the former Supreme Leader to me when we met or indeed in our correspondence over the years either on or off the record. He has a high standard of ethics hence his knighthood.

However Sir Graham did speak up for Gibraltarians on European issues in London, Brussels and here for the very simple reason that more often than not the former Supreme Leader refused to do so. Or, in some cases, he or his administration infringed the European rights of Gibraltarians.

Obviously the GSD have been stung by the success of the Gibraltar Government’s delegation not only to Brussels but also to London and Washington. In the latter two cases the doors of No 10 and the White House were never opened to the former Supreme Leader. I wonder why?

The success of the Brussels visit can be partly attributed to Sir Graham and he should be thanked and not slated for his hard work in making the encounters happen.

That being said Sir Graham is a Euro MP. He does not have the power to block the Chief Minister of Gibraltar visiting Euro officials or putting our case in Brussels.

The fact that such visits never took place during the 16 years that the Supreme Leader was in power are down to the Supreme Leader and nobody else. His failure to engage with Brussels, the European Parliament and a whole range of other people who could have helped Gibraltar are his responsibility alone.

Feetham says Sir Graham broke a long-standing convention that UK frontline politicians do not interfere in local politics. Sorry but the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence, the Treasury and its ministers are involved in our local politics whether we like it or not. In contrast Sir Graham is elected by Gibraltarians to speak for us: Danny it is called democracy!

The one person who is owed an apology here is Sir Graham. Sadly Daniel Feetham, following in the footsteps of the Supreme Leader, lacks the grace to tender one.

LIBERALS AND LIB DEMS: THE JOYS AND WOES OF COALITION

On Monday morning I settled down to breakfast in a rural hotel in Olvera in the Sierra de Cádiz. I had found a copy of Sunday’s El País in reception and flicked through the pages as I munched on my mollete. I stopped at a page on which there was a picture at the top of a grim David Cameron and Nick Clegg facing away from each other and decided to read intently.

My main reason for doing so is I believe there is a lot to be learned from how others see us. However having read the lengthy piece I was rather puzzled. There was nothing wrong with the report indeed it was a very British review of the state of the coalition two years on from the last general election. Yet there was no Spanish angle to it. I checked the by-line in case it had been written by a British journalist: by the name I suspect not. Perhaps the plight of the Lib Dems is plain for all to see whether you are British or Spanish.

One key point the article made is that the next major challenge to be faced by Nick Clegg will not be in parliament or at the polls but before his own party. In September he will have to address the Lib Dems party conference. He will do so with the Lib Dems two flagship policies in the bin. The changes to the voting system were kicked in to touch by the electorate in a referendum and the plans to reform the House of Lords have been dumped by Cameron because he can’t deliver the required votes amongst his Tory MPs. So Clegg will have to stand before his party to defend the coalition but with nothing to show for it. The leader will have no clothes.

In all likelihood at that conference will be the Leader of Gibraltar’s Liberal Party Dr Joseph Garcia. He has attended before but never as the Deputy Chief Minister of Gibraltar. Like Clegg he is the leader of a junior partner in a coalition government but the differences between the two could not be more marked.

In Britain the centre left Lib Dems are in government with the centre right Conservatives whereas we have a coalition formed by two parties of the left. The Lib Dems in their grab for power could have sided with either the Tories or Labour and probably backed Cameron due to the national loathing of Gordon Brown. Yet in Gibraltar the GSLP and Liberals went to the polls as long term partners on a joint manifesto. The Lib Dems manifesto still haunts them.

The Lib Dems are not just in trouble with the Tories but the electorate. Those MPs who were elected, some of whom now sit at the cabinet table, won their votes on promises they never expected they’d have to keep. My niece voted Lib Dem. A graduate just out of uni she believed Clegg and his cohorts when they pledged they’d oppose any rise in university fees. She feels betrayed and won’t be voting for the Lib Dems again. The next UK election will be fought out between Labour and the Tories: if the Lib Dems are lucky they will be reduced to a rump.

If our Liberals have a problem it is one of identity: just what in the GSLP Liberal manifesto is theirs? I know for a fact that Dr Garcia worked hard on drawing up the document with Fabian Picardo with input from both parties but what measures are socialist and what are Liberal?

We had a united GSLP Liberal opposition and now we have a very united GSLP Liberal government. Apart from the obvious names do you know which ministers represent which party? In the UK the differences between the coalition partners are all too plain to see.

The GSLP is of the socialist tradition, a sister party of the Labour Party in the UK. The Liberals are closely aligned to the Lib Dems in the UK and to the Liberals internationally. Unless the parties are to merge I believe it is important they still maintain distinctive identities for I suspect for many Gibraltarian voters the GSLP Lib Dems are already one party.

Perhaps the political miracle was that the then younger Dr Garcia was able to marshal his forces alongside the old political war horse Joe Bossano to deliver an effective GSLP Liberal opposition through several parliaments. The job in government is far easier as after all Fabian Picardo cut his political teeth as one of Dr Garcia’s troopers. Picardo now leads and when Dr Garcia attends the Lib Dem conference Nick Clegg should ask him for a tip or two on how to follow but more importantly how to make a coalition work.

HOW SHOULD WE FUND OUR POLITICAL PARTIES?

The “cash for access” row in the UK has raised the issue again of how political parties are funded. Should the cash come from party members, donors or the State?

The British experience is small beer compared with the obscenity of US political campaigning. In a nation with high unemployment countless millions of dollars are being spent in the primary process just to select the Republican nominee to challenge Obama. Then more countless millions will be spent as they battle it out to be president. Needless to say the majority of the cash comes from business and pressure group donors and rather than promoting policies it is all about character assassination. The US would have us believe it is the political system at its finest: sorry it is sewer politics and it stinks.

The main need for funding comes at election time but just to run a political office even with volunteers costs money. The Gibraltar parties are largely on a par with constituency parties in the UK. The Conservatives and Labour used to have a profession party agent running the local office perhaps with a paid secretary. For many constituencies that scenario is ancient history and now it is down to the activists. Yet rent, heating, lighting, office facilities and telephone – internet still add up to several hundred pounds a month minimum.

Ideally a political party should be funded by the many rather than the few. However a grass roots party may pay in to keep the operation going but if their leader is either in government or on the road to power then all sorts of major donors can suddenly surface hoping a large cash sum can buy them influence. In that scenario the activists are pushed aside with a people’s party bowing instead to the people with big pockets.

The positive point about Gibraltar political parties of all persuasions is that the politicians whether in or out of government have their professions outside of Parliament and their feet firmly on Main Street. This is in contrast to the UK where Cameron, Osborne, Miliband and Balls to name just four are professional politicians who have never had to earn an honest crust in the real world.

Gibraltar’s politicians get their ears bent by supporters and opponents alike as they shop, go to church, fill up the car with petrol, eat in a restaurant or stop for a coffee. There is no hiding place and it makes for healthy politics.

However leading British politicians live in a bubble completely separated from the people they represent: they are far more open to listening to somebody passing them a fat cheque with one view rather than a queue of activists clutching a fiver each with numerous opinions.

In some ways State funding does not help solve the problem. Certainly it should remove the millionaire donors but if the State is funding the party the professional politician has even less need for supporters and certainly no need to listen to their views.

I am also unclear how this State funding would work. Would it apply to all parties or elected parties? If I set up as a political party tomorrow would I suddenly be eligible for some dosh? Presumably not but would it be fair for the GSLP, Liberals and GSD to be funded and not the PDP because it has no MPs? Would the Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems, Greens and various nationalist parties in the British Parliament receive State funding but not the Monster Raving Looney Party and far from funny BNP?

Running a political party costs money and hence democracy costs money. Yet one party having more money than another and therefore better able to run a campaign is not democratic either. A party backed by a thousand activists each paying in a pound is easily out gunned by another party with a single donor handing over a million. It is a problem that needs to be solved but are politicians the people to do it?

GIBRALTAR’S BEST CONNECTED POLITICIAN

A week ago a photograph appeared in the Gibraltar media. It showed the leader of Gibraltar’s Liberal Party, Dr Joseph Garcia, sitting down with the deputy leader of the UK’s Lib Dems, Simon Hughes. They say every picture tells a story and the real story here wasn’t they’d had a chat after the memorial service for the former Mayor of Southwark, Hilary Wines, which they did, but that the Gibraltar Liberal is a key member of that party internationally.

They say you are getting old when the policemen on the beat start to look young. Well I first met Dr Joseph Garcia many years ago and he was young and I wasn’t that old. Now I have entered “maturity” and Gibraltar’s Liberal Leader still looks and indeed is young. However looks can be deceiving and despite his youth over the years he has made a mark not only for his party within the Liberal International organisation but also amongst fellow Lib Dems in the UK.

I asked the Lib Dem Euro MP for Gibraltar, Graham Watson, for his estimation of the Rock’s Liberal leader. He told me: “Joseph is well known locally for his work for Liberalism in Gibraltar; but many on the Rock are unaware of his important contribution to wider Liberal efforts - in the UK Lib Dems, in the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party and worldwide through the Liberal International.”

Indeed they are not. Not only has Dr Joseph steered what was a small Gibraltar party in to a strong coalition partnership with the GSLP but in so doing he has seen his personal standing and that of the Liberals rise considerably on the Rock’s political barometer. His name always charts amongst those naming who they would prefer as a chief minister. He has maintained his party’s identity and integrity yet worked in a close partnership with that wily old fox of a politician Joe Bossano. I am sure his success in Gibraltar is studied by thinking Lib Dems in the UK on how to enter and sustain a coalition without loosing your credibility or selling your soul.

At the next Gibraltar general election, whenever that may be, he will co-lead the GSLP – Liberal coalition in to battle with probably Fabian Picardo at his side. Yet it wouldn’t matter if it was Picardo or Bossano because whoever fights for the GSLP will have as their partner the best connected politician in Gibraltar.

I have no doubt Joe Bossano has a little red book but the names in it are probably Old Labour warriors like him. In Dr Joseph’s little black book are the names and numbers of the British Deputy Prime Minister, Lib Dem cabinet colleagues and the top Liberals world-wide.

I don’t know if the chief minister has a little contact book – all I’ve heard is that he’s a dab hand at throwing the telephone directory at people who incur his wrath. I am sure Simon Hughes isn’t in it as he went out of his way to meet as many people on his visit to Gibraltar, but the chief minister wasn’t one of them. I wonder why? I also suspect, I may be wrong, the chief minister doesn’t have the private number of David Cameron or come to that of the UK’s Foreign Secretary William Hague.

You can imagine the scene at Chez-Hague. The phone rings – Ffion get that for me will you – it’s who? – Peter? Peter who? – Caruana? – posh but foreign, he’s not Libyan is he? – Gibraltar – oh, Caruana, oh tell him I’m busy – very busy - I’m practicing judo with my male assistant!

(An edited version of the above appeared in Panorama on Monday March 7 2011)

MILIBAND AND CO CAN LEARN FROM THE GSLP – LIBERALS

I was recently in London at a Fabian Society conference to see the new Labour Leader, Ed Miliband, deliver the keynote speech. At the same conference the Lib Dem Deputy Leader –and a good friend of Gibraltar – Simon Hughes was also taking part in one of the sessions. I had wanted to ask him what lessons the GSLP Liberal alliance in Gibraltar could learn from the British coalition should they win the forthcoming general election on the Rock. I soon realised this wasn’t the question at all – it was what Miliband and the progressive Liberals could learn from the GSLP – Liberals.

I had seen Ed’s brother a couple of times when he visited Gibraltar in 2009 for the ministerial meeting with the then Spanish foreign secretary Miguel Moratinos and the chief minister Peter Caruana. Caruana must feel a bit like HM The Queen who has been on the throne so long that she has seen numerous prime ministers and presidents come and go. Far be it from me to compare the chief minister with royalty but since he was first elected in 1996 he has seen numerous British premiers, foreign secretaries and ministers for Europe and their Spanish counterparts rise and fall too.

One of the key themes of Ed Miliband’s speech was the need to create a progressive alliance. He believes the British public want to see progressive politics and intends to position the Labour Party in the vanguard of that movement – indeed as its very standard bearer. He then held out his hand to those members of the Lib Dems who were unhappy with the coalition with the Tories. He is in the process of wooing Lib Dem voters to abandon their party and join with Labour instead. In that effort he is achieving a lot of success. However he accepts that many Liberals will want to stay within the party and fight for their beliefs – these he believes could be the coalition partners for Labour in the future.

There is extreme anger in the Labour Party towards the Lib Dems, not because they would not enter coalition with them but because by joining the Conservatives they are allowing Cameron and Osborne to push through their cuts and have also betrayed much of their election manifesto. Hence it was interesting to see Simon Hughes take part in a session – Challengers or collaborators? Can the progressives influence the coalition?

I have to be honest and say that I believe the idea of a coalition with the Conservatives sits uneasily with Hughes and he spent most of the session seemingly trying to convince himself that he and his party had been right. He lost his cool on a number of occasions especially when being baited by Labour’s then Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Douglas Alexander MP under the watchful eye of the chair, the Guardian journalist Polly Toynbee. Alexander played a key role in the negotiations with the Lib Dems after the last election and given his abrasiveness I am not surprised they failed. He is definitely not on my list as a companion on a walking holiday.

A split between Labour and the Liberals occurred in British politics over a century ago and before Tony Blair led New Labour back to power in 1997 he had spent several years along with Peter Mandelson trying to form an alliance of the left with the Lib Dems. For a variety of reasons that never happened but of course in Gibraltar it has.

Now whilst the GSLP and Liberals are very much Gibraltarian parties both have very close links with their British counterparts. Joe Bossano was closely linked with the British trade union movement and the Labour Party and it was a stalwart of the London Co-operative left, Alf Lomas, that helped him in forging the GSLP. The Liberals too have strong links with the Lib-Dems both in Britain and internationally.

So the very alliance that Miliband is trying to strike for the progressives in politics in the UK has been alive and well in Gibraltar since Joe Bossano offered the hand of coalition to the Liberal leader Dr Joseph Garcia ahead of the 2000 elections. I am sure there have been disagreements between the two over the last decade but I have certainly never heard of any rumours of a likely brake in the alliance unlike the constant media prattle over splits between the Tories and Lib Dems. Furthermore if Fabian Picardo becomes leader of the GSLP in place of Joe Bossano then the alliance is likely to be even stronger as both he and Garcia are from the same political stock.

Whether that leaves the GSD as the Tories in disguise is a moot point. One of those who would like to succeed Caruana is his minister for justice, Daniel Feetham, who is a socialist. Not only did he have ambitions to lead the GSLP but even formed his own Labour Party, so where his political philosophy fits in with the rest of the GSD is anybody’s guess.

So if the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition runs its five year course and in 2014 Ed Miliband wants some advice on how to bring his progressive alliance to reality then he should look no further than the GSLP and Liberals – who by then could have brought the art of a progressive agenda to government.