By Maeve Gorman and Rachel Gore
AS the dust starts to settle on Gibraltar’s long-awaited post-Brexit treaty, protestors gathered in the territory’s main square with placards branding it ‘treacherous’.
Around 80 people marched down Main Street from the historic Casemates Square to the home of the government at Number Six Convent Place.
The group blasted Bob Marley’s civil rights anthem ‘Get up, stand up’ while event organisers carried a banner reading ‘No to this treacherous treaty, yes to a referendum’.
Cries of ‘British we are, British we stay’ and the blare of claxons resounded through the Rock’s main thoroughfare as protestors proudly waved the Rock’s flag.
One organiser, Eddie Lima, a 66-year-old retiree and born-and-bred Gibraltarian, explained his motives for organising the protest to The Olive Press.
“We don’t want Spanish boots on the ground, Spanish police in our airport.” he explained.
The Treaty, still to be ratified by the UK parliament before its scheduled implementation on April 10, would see Spanish officials carrying out passport checks at Gibraltar’s airport.
Currently, British travellers flying from the UK to the Rock go through a single immigration check conducted by Gibraltar’s border force.
The change would mean that British passport holders will have to provide fingerprints to Spanish border officials when they arrive in Gibraltar under the terms of the EU’s new Entry Exit System (EES), a digital border control system which requires non-EU nationals to register their biometrics before entry.
Another discontented Gibraltarian Francis, 71, told The Olive Press that ‘Spanish boots on the ground’ would be the first-step to Spain ‘claiming Gibraltar’.
He also believes that the Labour government is using Gibraltar as a ‘bargaining chip’ to foster closer relations with Spain and the EU.
Under the treaty, Spanish authorities will have the power to ‘perform any functions which are required to exercise border control’.
Given Spain’s longstanding claim to Gibraltar, protesters said the UK is handing Spain what it wants – greater control over Gibraltar – in order to cosy up to the bloc, at the expense of the Rock’s ‘sovereignty’.
‘Sovereignty’ was the word on everyone’s lips as protestors voiced their concerns with The Olive Press.
A Gibraltan retiree, Luis Edwards, 65, told this newspaper of his outrage with the ‘treacherous’ treaty, specifically Article 66 which states that Spain and the UK can terminate the treaty, but Gibraltar cannot.
“We have no sovereignty, we have no say in our future,” he said.
When asked what he didn’t like about the treaty he simply said, ‘everything’.
It is the contents of the treaty and the ‘grey areas’ within it which are why the protestors are calling for a referendum.
As Francis said, they ‘do not want a frontier’ and are ‘not opposed to a treaty’ but they do not want ‘this one’.
With 96% of the Rock’s residents voting no in the Brexit referendum, there is real will for a workable solution.
But the people want a say in the Rock’s future.
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The treaty was waved through the Gibraltarian government without going to the public.
Edwards wants the parliament to listen to the people: ‘I’m certain more than 50% of us don’t want this treaty’, he said.
The march finished with the protestors handing a letter outlining their grievances with the treaty to Gibraltar Governor Sir Ben Bathurst.
While these passionate Gibraltarians wait to hear a response to their plea, the treaty is in the hands of the UK and the EU.
Under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, the UK parliament must closely scrutinise the text.
With Conservative hardliners raising concerns about how British citizens will be treated under the 90-day Schengen rule when entering Gibraltar, the process won’t be straightforward.
The European process is also complex.
The European Council must first formally authorise the agreement’s signature – a process currently under scrutiny by the Council’s Working Party on EU-UK Relations.
For his part, Fabian Picardo, Gibraltar’s Chief Minister described the treaty as ‘imperfect’ was better than the better than the ‘catastrophic’ alternative of no-deal.
The Rock’s future, for now it seems, may actually be out of Gibraltarian hands.
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