HMS Westminster is here as part of a long planned naval exercise and not a reaction to the current diplomatic feud between Spain and the UK over Gibraltar. But it can’t hurt the political posturing to have a frigate tied up in the harbor with two large support ships to cramp with war marines alongside. 

 

-It's essential that we have here a frigate all the time. It’s not for defy, but to show these agers(?) that this is a British one.

 

-Margaret Thatcher met with King Juan Carlos and then Prime Minister of Spain, and they said that they weren't going to interfere with your border, but they still do in 40 years after. So you can send all of the British fleets here, but they are not going to stop.

 

Gibraltar’s Chief Minister avoids to jingle his rhetoric with some of his compatriots, but he’s clear Spain is in the wrong and EU needs to sort it out and soon.

 

Well, I’d like to see the EU demonstrates(?), and particularly the Commission that it take its responsibilities as guardian of the treaties as seriously as all of us who are pro-European believe that it does, and that it should manifest itself in action to stop the abuse that we are seeing at the frontier and with between Gibraltar and Spain.

 

The latest impasse between Spain and its small neighbor is supposed to be about fish, but its ramifications go much deeper.

 

The diplomatic standoff is about far more than political brinkmanship. It affects the daily lives of thousands of people, not only in Gibraltar, but also Spanish tourists who come across the border every day. The seemingly random clamp down on border checks by the Spanish appears to be causing chaos. Many people are either abandoning their vehicles on the Spanish side or abandoning their trip altogether.

 

Next month, Gibraltarians will have a holiday to celebrate national day, and revealing their independence and pride in their British heritage. Spain will have to wait much longer than the three hundreds years already passed until the Rock entertains being Spanish again.