Express
By Matt Drake
SPAIN could “cut off its nose to spite its face” in the event of a hard Brexit by making trade and life difficult for the people of Gibraltar, it has been claimed by worried residents on the Rock.
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Gibraltar is the only British outpost on the European mainland and voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU referendum.
But there are growing fears that if the UK crashes out of the EU without a deal, then Gibraltar may be unable to import goods from not just the bloc, but also from the UK itself.
Gibraltar relied on supplies from Morocco from 1969 to 1982 after General Francisco Franco shut the border and cut off contact, even down to people’s phone lines between families.
Lawyer Gemma Vasquez, who led Gibraltar’s Remain campaign, remembers being cut off from their Spanish grandmother.
She said this weekend: “Time after time, the Spanish will cut off their nose to spite their face.”
Gibraltar is reliant on Spanish labour with agreements to allow 13,000 Spanish workers across the border every day as well as the free flow of goods.
But Spain can slow down traffic, according to Gibraltar’s attorney-general Michael Llamas, who said: “All they need to do is to spend 30 seconds on every passport.
“If they do that on 30 cars, we’ve got complete blockage. What often happens is that it goes all the way into town and Gibraltar gets gridlocked.”
Madrid has 300-year-old claims of sovereignty over Gibraltar and Mr Llamas regularly meets Spanish, British and European politicians to fight for “border fluidity”.
Spain has been making claims of sovereignty over Gibraltar for over 300 years (Image: GETTY)
The Rock faces similar problems to the Irish border. Company director of importing business Gibmaroc Group, George Desoisa, is worried there could be a “blockade” if there is a no-deal Brexit.
He said: “In the event of a hard Brexit, that would mean an absolute blockade at the border, or maybe they’ll just allow goods to become drip-fed.
“It’s not that the border would close but they would make life so difficult for our supply chain.
“If we’re incurring delays of two, three, four days for perishable goods, we will have to find alternatives.”
Residents are worried there could be traffic jams (Image: GETTY)
Although the Brexit vote means the Rock will quit the EU, the relationship it has with the bloc is different to that of mainland UK.
It has never been part of the customs union and goods coming from Spain are subject to tariffs.
Chief Minister Fabian Picardo said Gibraltar is already in a position similar to a hard Brexit.
But he is worried about the impact of a no-deal Brexit on Britain, which is Gibraltar’s biggest trading partner.
Speaking to the Sunday Times, he said: “On March 30, my biggest problem could manifest itself at Dover and Calais, not in La Linea.
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“If our Irish beef and our salted butter can’t get to us from the UK, we’ll have to make arrangements to ensure that there are no shortages in Gibraltar.
“If there’s a pile-up at Dover… we’ll have to make other arrangements to ensure there are no shortages here.
Tensions have been flaring up on the border between Gibraltar and Spain.
Earlier this month, Spanish extremists crashed a police union protest at the border and beat up a Gibraltarian woman.
Protesters allegedly harassed Gibraltar registered cars and pedestrians as they attempted to cross from Spain into the British territory.
The Spanish government’s representative in Cádiz, José Pacheco, issued a statement of apology on Saturday.
He said: “We apologise to all those people who were affected by the incidents last Wednesday.
“Anyone who uses their constitutional right [to peaceful public demonstration] to cause a disturbance or make other claims does not do so with the consent of the Spanish Government or the approval of its representatives.”
Mr Pacheco said that while the demonstration over police pay had been authorised, any other sentiments expressed by protestors “were their responsibility”.
