Spaniards take swipe at May for ‘forgetting about Gibraltar’

THERESA MAY’S Government appears to have “more important things” to worry about than the fate of 28,000 Gibraltarians, according to Spanish sources, who claimed that Gibraltar would crash out of the single market without the cushion of a Brexit transition deal.

After Mrs May triggered the Brexit negotiations in March, the EU blindsided the British government by insisting that any Brexit deal could only apply to Gibraltar if Spain agreed.

The EU-27 negotiating mandate effectively takes Madrid’s side in the centuries-old territorial dispute over the rock.

Senior Spanish government sources are reported to have said the British government had made no proposals at all to it regarding the future of Gibraltar.

In a thinly veiled swipe as Mrs May’s struggles since she lost the Conservative majority at the general election, the source said: “I honestly believe they have other more important issues.”

They insisted that the effective Spanish veto over a Brexit deal for Gibraltar also applied to any UK-EU transition deal designed to soften the blow of leaving the single market and customs union.

The Daily Telegraph asked the European Commission, which is handling negotiations on behalf of the EU-27, if it agreed with the Spanish analysis.

Officials pointed to the negotiating mandate, which reads: “After the United Kingdom leaves the Union, no agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom

‘I honestly believe the British have more important issues to worry about’

may apply to the territory of Gibraltar without the agreement between the Kingdom of Spain and the United Kingdom.”

Mrs May’s spokesman has said: “The [Brexit] deal must work for Gibraltar, too.”

A spokesman for the government of Gibraltar refused to comment.

However, Fabian Picardo, Gibraltar’s prime minister, has previously said that a hard Brexit would pose an “existential threat” to the island.