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Mar 16 - Chief Minister’s Address To House Of Lords Select Committee

At a function yesterday evening, the Chief Minister addressed members of the House Of Lords Brexit Select Committee who are on a fact-finding visit to the Rock.

Here’s Mr Picardo’s full speech:

My Lords


Ministers


Members of Parliament

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

For three hundred and fourteen years, the large limestone rock we call home has been British.

In that time there have been short periods of European conflicts and long periods of peace in Europe.

That time has also yielded periods of World Wars, regional wars and territorial conflict.

In all that time, the Gibraltarians have remained resolutely British.

We have remained devotedly a part of the British family.

And we have been a strategic asset for the projection of British power around the world.

We are therefore not ‘fair weather British citizens’.

We are not a nation who seek simply to be British in the good times and who will jump from the good ship Britannia at the first hint of trouble.

And so anyone who thinks that there is even the remotest possibility that we might be prepared to trade any part of our sovereignty in the negotiations to establish a new relationship with the European Union will have failed to understand the lessons of history.

Last year we celebrated an anniversary in Gibraltar of the referendum held in 1967 in which we elected to remain British.

It is worth noting, My Lords, that in 1967 the United Kingdom was not a member of the then European Economic Community.

Yet we chose to stick with Britain.

We chose now also to stick with Britain even though the United Kingdom will now be leaving the European Union.

It seems trite, this far down the line from the result of the Brexit referendum to have to repeat the position of the People of Gibraltar.

Yet it seems necessary as I have read in the past forty eight hours that a number of fantasists in think tanks and academia may not have got the message.

We in Gibraltar don’t like to see people waste their time. We do not like to lead anyone up the garden path.

So I think it is worth being explicit and making clear that there are no circumstances in which the outcome of the Brexit negotiations will lead to any dilution of the British sovereignty of Gibraltar.

It just isn’t going to happen.

And I am pleased to see that the position of the Government of Spain has, in some respects, been much more measured and mature than the fantastical position exposed by some academics.

The current Spanish Foreign Minister, Snr Dastis has clearly and rightly understood that we have a common responsibility to ensure that the lives of the people who cross the frontier between Gibraltar and Spain should not be in any way disadvantaged by the Brexit decision.

Snr Dastis has also explicitly stated that the recovery of the sovereignty of Gibraltar is an objective which Spain will not renounce, but also one which is not being pursued as part of the Brexit negotiations.

I welcome both those sets of statements by the Spanish Government.

That is a good basis on which to consider how best to achieve the objective I have repeatedly stated should be our joint endeavour:

How to use Brexit to create a rainbow of opportunities that will enhance the wealth created in Gibraltar in a manner that is designed to further lap all parts of the shore of the Bay of Gibraltar.

There are many untapped opportunities that repeated generations of politicians in Gibraltar and in the Campo have wanted to see take off.

From further afield, international politics and the processes it seeks to impose from afar, have stymied all progress.

Brexit is the opportunity to break the stale mate.
Without crossing red lines on sovereignty, jurisdiction or control. Without breaching established positions on process.

Without either side having to be a winner or a loser.

The drama of Brexit can provide the backdrop on which the stage could be set for cooperation that has been within our grasp before but which we have never been able to see through into action.

Threatening Gibraltar from exclusion in the withdrawal agreement, the transitional period and the future arrangements between the UK and the EU will not achieve any of that.

Threatening Gibraltar has, in fact, never achieved anything.

Indeed, threatening Gibraltar is to threaten the people of the Campo as much as it is to threaten the Gibraltarians.

And so, although I have welcomed Snr Dastis’ position on continued frontier fluidity and his realism on the issue of Spain’s claims to our land, I entirely reject the notion that Gibraltar should be excluded from the agreements on withdrawal, transition or future trade.

An orderly and timely arrangement for withdrawal and future cooperation is as much in the interests of the ten thousand five hundred European citizens who come to work in Gibraltar each day, eight thousand of them Spanish.

The People of Gibraltar voted to remain in the European Union.

We will, in fact, remain as the only bit of British soil which will have a land frontier with continental Europe.

We are, in fact, remain as the only bit of British soil which will have a land frontier with the Schengen area.

And to boot, we are the only bit of the Member State United Kingdom that is already outside the Common Customs Union.

My Lords, you have understood that, and all the other nuances which are relevant to Gibraltar, perfectly well.

Your report on Brexit and Gibraltar published in March last year already demonstrated that.

Yet you nonetheless rightly wanted to pursue a visit to Gibraltar to see for yourselves as we approximate our departure from membership of the European Union.

Here you will meet traders and workers who will give you their perspective too.
You will meet the Gibraltar Parliament’s own Brexit Select Committee.
And you will see that the conclusions you have drawn about Gibraltar were absolutely right a year ago. And you will understand how more recent are affected by them.

I want to thank you therefore, and in particular your Chairman, Lord Boswell, for your keen interest in how Gibraltar is advancing through Brexit.

And also for your tenacity in corresponding with relevant Brexit decision makers in the United Kingdom.

Your letter to the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, David Davis, elicited a response to you in keeping with the commitments expressed directly to us.

In respect of the potential exclusion of Gibraltar from withdrawal, transition or future relationships with the EU, the position that the Secretary of State put to you was clear – and has been repeated also by the Prime Minister: they negotiate for the whole of the United Kingdom including Gibraltar.

His particular words cannot be misinterpreted:

“We are clear that Gibraltar is covered by our negotiations for withdrawal, the implementation period and the future relationship.”

And the Secretary of State has been just as clear in respect of the bilateral relationship that will develop between Gibraltar and the United Kingdom in the future also.

His letter to you specifically referred to that when he said that:

“HMG AND GOG intend to pursue a close economic partnership underpinned by shared, high standards of regulation. It is the UNSHAKEABLE objective of the UK Government to ensure the seamless continuation of existing market access into the UK and enhance it where possible.”

Already last week we have seen the first fruits of that work in the consolidation of market access for the period up to the end of the transition or implementation period which is presently expressed by the Prime Minister to be up to the end of 2020.

The unshakeable commitment to go beyond that is now also clearly enshrined in the work being finalised on a new Gibraltar Order under the Financial Services & Markets Act which will not be necessary before the end of the transitional period but work on which has already commenced.

The same is true of the work of substance on alignment of regulatory outcomes.

There can be no reason therefore to doubt that the transition from access to the UK under EU Single Market Rules to rules based on bilateral arrangements is underway and confirmed.

My Lords, whether it is on sovereignty or on preservation and growth of our economic model, we are working well and in a mature and deep partnership with the United Kingdom.

We have understood the need to deliver the Brexit decision in a manner that preserves prosperity and ensures the daily lives of people who live in and around Gibraltar are unaffected by the departure of the UK from the EU.

And we have continued to offer the hand of friendship to the people of Spain; not because of Brexit, but despite it. Not because of Clause 24 of the European Negotiating Guidelines, but despite them. Not because we feel threatened, but because we believe in cooperation and we believe in a Europe of citizens from different nation states working together for the common good.

So thank you for coming to “sunny” Gibraltar to see for yourselves how the people of the Rock are going to make a success of this latest challenge.

And why nothing will ever dislodge how British we feel, are and will forever remain. THANK YOU.


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