Once again the UK and Spain have been winding each other up over Gibraltar.
Like cantankerous old neighbours who have spent most of their lives arguing nonsensically over the height of a hedge, the UK and Spain have been at each others’ throats for 300 years.
In times gone by those arguments would be as numerous as the apes that run riot over the Rock, and on the odd occasion they would lead to violence.
Thankfully that hasn’t been the case for quite some time. But for a few self-serving senior senors there is still a deep rooted rage eating away at them. And as these past few weeks have shown with their OTT border checks and empty threats of punitive tolls, those pains from Spain like nothing better than stirring up trouble over Gibraltar.
Simply put, they won’t be happy until they get it back. It’s a border dispute bordering on the ridiculous!
The laugh here is that it’s the Spanish who stand to lose the most if this childish dispute escalates any further.
A whopping 10,000 of them work on Gibraltar, so any imposed tolls and delays would have a catastrophic effect on their way of life. Thousands more who visit weekly to shop (tax free) and fill up on cheap fuel would suddenly find their standard of living drop to an all time low.
Instead of spitting the dummy, Spain could do worse than try to emulate this small, gilt-edged headland’s success.
As I briefly mentioned last year after paying a visit, Gibraltar is hugely successful. Its GDP stands at a staggering £1.2 billion and is expected to top £1.6 bn by 2015. Personal tax is set at no more than 15% and import duty is 0%.
There is no VAT, no capital gains tax, no wealth tax, no sales tax and almost no unemployment.
In fact the UK, not just Spain, could learn a trick or two here. Almost every financial incentive to stimulate growth has been deployed by their little parliament and it works, and works well . . .
And that brings me neatly round to something that has been niggling away at me since this dispute first raised its childish head.
We have seen and heard a lot from Spain and we have heard a lot in return from the UK Government (I think I’ll smash my telly if I have to listen to any more baritone bluster from wee Willie Hague). Indeed they’re now overreacting and sending over a destroyer.
But we have heard next to nada from the Gibraltarians the people at the very heart of the dispute.
I’m sure they have a view and I would love to hear it.
Could it be they know Madrid is trying to deflect attention away from its own economic troubles and it will eventually all blow over? Probably.
Could it also be that they are sick of being a colony and wish the UK and Spain would leave them alone?
They may love the Royals but not necessarily the UK Government, and maybe felt this dispute was something they could have handled on their own.
Is that a point not missed by the UK Government, who perhaps sent in the Navy to show not just the Spanish who was boss but any naughty Gibraltarians who have silly notions of a breakaway?
It does make you wonder how Westminster will react if Scotland does vote “yes” next year, doesn’t it?
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