Why 30,000 Gibraltarians can't be allowed to dictate British policy

The Spanish have been obstructive. But true British patriots should hope for success in the talks with Madrid

It isn't that surprising that Tony Blair was so anxious to bat away questions about Gibraltar after he met Jose Maria Aznar yesterday. Other subjects he discussed with the Spanish Prime Minister – notably asylum – resonate more sharply with the British electorate. The future of the Rock and its 30,000 inhabitants seems positively Lilliputian beside the grand designs preoccupying the chancelleries of Europe. Not only the Conservative front bench but the more nationalist forces within the Labour Party are gearing up to challenge what they smell as a sell-out.

The talks on Gibraltar with the Spanish government are very difficult. And while the two men promised their governments would continue talking, their brief exchanges on the subject did little in themselves to remove the obstacles to an agreement. Which doesn't mean that the issue can be ignored, however much both Prime Ministers no doubt wish it could. For this is a dispute that is larger than it looks, which goodness knows would not be difficult. For the Gibraltarians, of course, the issue of whether Gibraltar is British or Spanish or both is a matter of obsessive interest. But for Britain, too, the issue has something to say about the UK's place in Europe in particular, the nature of patriotism and the British national interest.

That is vastly truer of the euro, of course. But contrary to the many thousands of words that have been written on that subject since Mr Blair last week reaffirmed his keenness to see Britain join, nothing much has happened. Gordon Brown is still, in the precise meaning of that word, sceptical. And while some in the pro-euro camp hope this will change, it hasn't yet. On the second order but also suggestive issue of Gibraltar, by contrast, change is happening right now.

Unless you still measure post-imperial British prowess by the number of pink dots on the globe, the UK interest in settling the 350-year-old dispute is very clear. Spain is big and rich. Its potential as a powerful ally for Britain in the EU, already partly realised, is very great. And yet Gibraltar continues to be the monkey on the back of Anglo-Spanish relations, which is why the Thatcher government in 1984 began the process of negotiations only now heading for a conclusion. To take one illustrative example, EU measures covering issues from financial services to justice and home affairs, from unified air traffic control to cheaper air fares, have been or risk being subjected to long delays, some of several years, followed by tortuous legal negotiations under which Gibraltar, to the fury of its citizens, is excluded from their application. And these, don't forget, are measures to enforce the single market, something to which all British parties have subscribed. In each of these, to the utter bafflement of all other European countries, Spain and Britain (both of whom claim to be in the vanguard of economic reform) face the embarrassment of blocking progress. As it happens, a deal would be in the practical interests of Gibraltarians too. The host of harassments to which they are subjected, from the persistent difficulties of travelling by air or road to Spain to the difficulty of making phone calls, would be ended by the agreement on joint sovereignty which the British and Spanish are trying to negotiate.

Gibraltar's status as a tax haven is steadily being undermined by OECD and EU regulation. To forge an alternative future it badly needs better economic links with Spain. And it would get them in a deal under which its people would continue to be British citizens, operate the national curriculum if they want and keep English as the official language – even though most of them speak Spanish first – and enjoy enhanced self-government. Yet when at a reception after the Queen Mother's funeral the Foreign Office minister Peter Hain pointed out to Gibraltar's Chief Minister Peter Caruana that any deal with Spain would benefit the Gibraltarians in all these ways, Mr Caruana reportedly replied: "Yes, but that's not the point."

By which, of course, he meant that the point was sovereignty, which the Gibraltarians want to be completely British in perpetuity. Never mind that this is akin to Land's End being permanently under Spanish control. As it happens, the Gibraltarians have total sovereignty in one important sense; no agreement with Spain can be operated without agreement by the Gibraltar people in a referendum. The status of an agreement, if it is made, will be something akin to the Downing Street declaration between London and Dublin, implementable only by all the parties. Which is one reason why it would have been smarter for Mr Caruana, who was elected on a platform of wanting talks with Spain, to join the present negotiations rather than boycott them. He could have held out the threat of walking out if he didn't like what was being said; and he had the final safeguard of a referendum.

It's true that the Spanish have sometimes been obstructive. The border harassment has been real. There are also doves and hawks in Madrid. Mr Hain and his counterpart Ramon de Miguel reached a draft agreement last month, only for the Spanish to harden their position as the talks moved up a level to Jack Straw and his counterpart Josep Piquet, another forward-looking Spanish politician who wants a deal but is subject to real domestic pressures. The issue of protecting the military base can probably be sorted out. But the Spanish, from Mr Aznar down, have reiterated that they cannot abandon their historic claim to full sovereignty which is rather difficult to reconcile with the British demand that any solution should be permanent. Particularly as they are queasy about the wording of any reference to the referendum which might inspire the Basques to demand self-determination.

That said, the monolithic opposition on the Rock to a deal might, over years, diminish as its obvious economic benefits become clear. At present, open and rational debate is not exactly encouraged. Political disputes are between the hard-liners and the extremists. Having watched furious demonstrators manhandling Mr Straw on his recent visit, I wouldn't myself fancy being a still small voice of dissent in Gibraltar.

Above all what Mr Caruana – not to mention the now hard-line British Conservatives – aren't justified in doing is to stop the two governments from trying. Mr Straw has promised that he sees no deal as better than a bad deal. But the idea that it is an outrage to urge joint sovereignty with another vibrant democracy on 30,000 Gibraltarians when it was OK to hand over 5 million Hong Kong Chinese to a communist dictatorship is absurd. Particularly when the vast majority in Hong Kong had no British citizenship rights at all. But then of course, the Gibraltarians are white. To let 30,000 Gibraltarians dictate their own future is one thing. To let them dictate the relations of Britain, a country of 60 million, with Spain is quite another. There will never be a better opportunity for making such a deal. True British patriots should hope for success in the current talks with Madrid.

d.macintyre@independent.co.uk