If Spain wants to talk about Gibraltar, let's address the status of Cueta and Melilla

The EU have given Spain an effective veto over Gibrlatar's future as part of its Brexit negotiating manual.

The President of the EU Council (not to be confused with any of the other six EU presidents), Donald Tusk, has unveiled a document detailing how the EU will manage its negotiations with the UK. In that document it proposes that every decision relating to Gibraltar is put in front of Spain.

The EU has long supported Spain's illegitimate claim to Gibraltar which it ceded to the UK in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht. Spain has been given extensive rights to set and police environmental policy for Gibraltar's waters and relentless breaches of agreements on border controls and illegal incursions by Spanish ships into Gibraltar's waters have been ignored by the EU. When Spain decided to hold up traffic at the Gibraltar-Spain border in 2014 in the height of summer on a whim the EU arranged an appointment for inspectors to go and see what was happening so the Spanish government could cease their operations before they arrived. Despite TV news footage being broadcast live around the world showing what was happening the EU refused to act.

Former cabinet minister Michael Howard suggested that Theresa May would be prepared to go to war with Spain over Gibraltar as Margaret Thatcher did with Argentina over the Falklands. But a more diplomatic solution could be pursued by addressing the status of the Spanish exclaves of Cueta and Melilla on the north coast of Africa in our negotiations on behalf of our old allies, Morocco. It's only fair, right?

EU Commission rules against Spain in Gibraltar reef dispute

The EU Commission has dismissed all of Spain's complaints about the artificial reef created in Gibraltarian waters which the Spanish government used as justification for a number of illegal incursions into Gibraltarian waters by Guardia Civil gunboats.

In the last 2 and a half years there have been over 600 illegal incursions into Gibraltarian waters by Spanish ships and the EU has stood by and let it happen. When the Spanish government stepped up border controls earlier this year in retaliation for refusing to stop construction of the artificial reef the EU insisted on sending inspectors to see what was going on - pre-announced of course - despite pictures of the huge queues and Spanish and Gibraltarian personal accounts being widely publicised all over the world. They of course saw nothing wrong when they turned up on the pre-arranged date so there were no consequences for the Spanish government.

It's refreshing to see the EU Commission actually side with the people of Gibraltar for once when it comes to Spanish harassment instead of just letting them get away with infringing on their sovereignty and damaging their economy. Now it's time the British government did their bit to protect Gibraltarian sovereignty and ordered the Royal Navy to board any Spanish ship in Gibraltar's waters and confiscate it, including Guardia Civil vessels.

You appear to be parked on our lawn

EU doesn't recognise UK's claim to the Falklands

The Spanish head of an EU delegation to Argentina, Yañez Barnuevo MEP, has told the Argentinian government that as far as the EU Parliament is concerned the UK's sovereignty over the Falklands "is not accepted".

The Lisbon Treaty explicitly recognises the Falklands as a British Overseas Territory so Barnuevo's statement is strange given that failure of the EU Parliament to recognise the UK's sovereignty over the Falklands would be illegal under EU law.  It's not surprising in the slightest though - the Spaniards would see forcing the UK to cede sovereignty of the Falklands despite the 99.8% vote to retain its status as a UK overseas territory in a referendum this year as a precedent to do the same in Gibraltar where 98.48% rejected the principal of Spain sharing sovereignty of the territory in a referendum in 2002.

Royal Navy turf Spaniards out of Gibraltarian waters

The Royal Gibraltar Police and a Royal Navy ship had to evict a number of Spanish fishing boats and police cruisers from Gibraltarian waters today.

The Spaniards are still trying to bully the people of Gibraltar into submission over Spain's spurious claims to Gibraltar with unacceptable delays at border crossings and now incursions into Gibraltarian waters.

Today's stand-off was down to Spanish fishermen illegally fishing off Gibraltar and the Spanish police boats that went along to "protect" them.  Spain disputes the UK's claim to waters up to 3 miles off the coast of Gibraltar and fishermen and the Spanish police have made numerous incursions into Gibraltar's territorial waters.

The situation has been confused somewhat by the EU's refusal to condemn Spain's bullying of Gibraltarians and in allowing Spain to claim jurisdiction over all Gibraltarian waters outside the harbour under EU environmental protection laws.

When all this kicked off in the latter half of 2009, Nigel Farage told us that UKIP was committed to Gibraltar's right to self-determination and quite unequivocally said that Spain needs to stick to what it has previously agreed on the rights of Gibraltarians.  The Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo, described Spain's actions as an "obviously carefully premeditated challenge to our indisputable sovereignty, jurisdiction and control of British Gibraltar Territorial Waters and our airspace".

What is the British government's response to this act of war?  The EU Minister, David Lidington, was going to phone the Gibraltarian First Minister today and reassure him of the British government's position and Wee Willy Vague will tell his Spanish counterpart that Gibraltar is ours so stop being so mean.  Scary stuff.  Like being menaced by a hamster.

It's time we had a UKIP Gibraltar.  They vote in EU elections as part of the south west of England and as the only party that opposes the EU which causes so many of Gibraltar's problems, UKIP should be able to establish itself quite effectively as a political force on the rock.

Royal Navy sees off Spaniards again

The Royal Navy saw off an armed Spanish boat from Gibraltarian waters on Saturday.

Spain has been encroaching on Gibraltar's territorial waters far too often of late, even going as far as registering Gibraltar's waters as a Spanish environmental protection zone which the European Empire were more than happy to allow them to do and the British government were stupidly negligent enough to allow them to do.

Last week a Royal Navy warship forced a Spanish paramilitary police launch out of Gibraltarian waters and on Saturday, another warship was dispatched to remove another Spanish boat that had been given instructions by the Spanish government to board fishing boats in Gibraltar's waters and carry out inspections.

Spain thinks it has the right to control Gibraltar's waters because the European Empire has allowed it to register the sea around Gibraltar as Spanish under EU environmental legislation. The British and Gibraltar governments both failed to notice so Spain was given responsibility for the environment in Gibraltarian territorial waters.

The facts around Gibraltar are quite simple - under the Treaty of Utrecht, Spain ceded Gibraltar to the UK in 1713 and under international law, the British government can claim up to 12 miles of sea from the Gibraltar coast. As it happens, the British government have claimed only 3 miles but the Spanish claim that Gibraltar has no territorial waters outside of the Port of Gibraltar.

Spain's actions are a deliberate provocation and the British government needs to buck its ideas up where Gibraltar is concerned. Spain's use of the European Empire as a tool in its illegitimate claim to Gibraltar and the European Empire's willingness to support Spain's campaign speaks volumes. We are in a political union with a country that is committing acts of war against us, aided and abetted by the collective will of that same political union.

Nigel Farage told Bloggers4UKIP:

UKIP fully supports the Gibraltarian right to self-determination. As of course we fully support the UK's right to such self-determination.

This means of course a rigorous adherence to the sovereignty and rights that Spain has already agreed with both Gibraltar and the UK. Which is what the Royal Navy was doing, chasing off Spanish ships from Gibraltar waters.

If only the government in Westminster were as assiduous in protecting our rights from their encroachment by Brussels.

UKIP played a key part in resisting the British government's plan to share sovereignty of Gibraltar with Spain, in defiance of the express wishes of the people of Gibraltar who voted in a referendum in 2002 to remain a British Overseas Territory and further re-iterated by a referendum on a new constitution that clearly set out Gibraltar's status in 2006.

Gibraltarians have the chance to vote for a party on June 4th that will fight for Gibraltar's right to self-determination and to free the territory from the treacherous European union that the British government has signed us all up to against our wishes. The only party that will protect Gibraltar's interests - and the interests of the UK as a whole - in the face of European imperialism is UKIP.

Liebour targets Gibraltar

Liebour MEP, Glyn Ford, has been to Gibraltar (no doubt paid for by the taxpayer) to kick off his election campaign there.

Gibraltar was lumped in with the South West England euroregion after Gibraltarians successfully challenged the British government's inaction on organising EU elections in Gibraltar.

Ford is courting Gibraltarian votes by calling for a specific Gibraltar region of the European Empire and for the adoption of the euro. However, while it makes sense for Gibraltar to an electoral euroregion of its own rather than being lumped in with the South West England euroregion, to do so whilst the European Empire is so weak on the subject of Spain's claim to Gibraltar (it has recently allowed Spain to claim Gibraltarian territorial waters) would seriously risk Gibraltar's continued status as a British Overseas Territory - the settled will of the people of Gibraltar.

The best thing Gibraltarians can do to protect themselves from Spanish colonialism is to vote UKIP, leave the EU and take Gibraltar's future out of the hands of the European Empire.

There's still time for UKIP's South West euroregional committee to get UKIP's message to Gibraltar and secure the important votes of Gibraltar.