HOW I SEE IT
OuT in the Bay of Gibraltar yesterday lunchtime, a Spanish warship turned up, hanging around like a bully at the school gates.
But it certainly wasn’t spoiling the party mood onshore as the most famous Gibraltarian on the planet was being installed as the mayor.
Well might Spain want to flex its muscles, though. For it has a formidable new adversary — yet another British ‘Iron Lady’ shaping the long, fraught story of the Rock’s determined quest to stay British.
Doing her best to calm the belligerent tone of the latest Anglo-Spanish quarrel over Gibraltar, Theresa May has invoked Churchill’s maxim — namely that ‘jawjaw’ is better than ‘war-war’.
To which one local wag yesterday responded: ‘And so is phwoar phwoar.’
It is neither sexist nor even debatable to describe Kaiane Lopez as the world’s most photogenic mayor. Only a few years ago, in 2009, the then-Miss Gibraltar went on to conquer the globe when she was crowned Miss World, no less.
Having hung up her crown, she now has a mayoral chain. Even Boris Johnson in his zipwire-dangling prime seems something of a dullard compared to the new occupant of City Hall here on the Rock.
Kaiane’s position may be a largely ceremonial and apolitical one, just like that of the Queen, beneath whose portrait and coat of arms she was formally appointed yesterday.
But on one issue, she has no qualms about speaking her mind. ‘I am proud to be British,’ she told me. ‘Gibraltar is British and always will be. Why would we ever want to change our flag?’
She was presented with her regalia by the territory’s Chief Minister, Fabian Picardo, who invoked a bit of Blitz spirit as he borrowed another line from the book of Churchill. ‘These are difficult times,’ he declared to the City Hall audience, ‘but we will never accept being discriminated against. We will never surrender!’ Cue thunderous applause from a cross-section of Gibraltarian life.
AMONG this crowd, as with any Gibraltarian you stop in the street, there remained festering disappointment after last week’s announcement by European Council President Donald Tusk that the Eu intends to give Spain its very own veto over any Brexit deal for Gibraltar on top of the veto it already enjoys, like all Eu nations, over Britain’s Brexit deal.
No one here is surprised that Spain has been nobbling Mr Tusk and the Eu. But they are hurt that, having voted overwhelmingly to stay in the Eu — Gibraltar’s 96 per cent was by far the highest Remain vote — Europe should single them out for extra-special punishment.
Because Mr Tusk’s announcement effectively gives Spain an equal say in the future of a territory over which, until now, it had no say. As Edward Macquisten, chief executive of the Gibraltar Chamber of Commerce, put it: ‘If this is how the Eu treat their supporters, it doesn’t bode well for the future of Europe.’
Adolfo Canepa, the outgoing mayor, said: ‘Europe has just legitimised the claim of Spain and that is not just hurtful. I am aghast.’ Like Kaiane, he has been a rigorously non-political public figure — not least because he is also Speaker of the Gibraltarian Parliament — but, on this, he is happy to explode.
Because if there is one subject on which there is absolutely no dispute among anyone here, Left or Right, old or young, it is that they all want to be part of Britain — the same Britain that voted for a Brexit they emphatically did not want.
As Spain prepares to use Brexit as a stick with which to beat this infuriatingly and resolutely red, white and blue pimple on its southern rump, the new Mayor Lopez is one more reason why Gibraltar refuses to countenance, let alone discuss,