John Downing: Why EU-UK deal on Gibraltar is also good news for Ireland
Nearly 100pc of citizens of the British Overseas Territory voted to remain in the EU, but were dragged out of it when the UK left


I was once obliged to spend six weeks on Gibraltar, a strange place that back then resembled Ireland in the 1960s, epitomised by the YR sauce bottle on the cafe table alongside a container of bilious salad cream that would peel the skin off the roof of your mouth.
Gibraltar, at the bottom of Spain with a commanding vista over the Mediterranean, has been a British colony since 1713 and the focus of periodical Madrid-London tensions and repeated blockades. Its strange status is summed up by the Brexit debacle.
Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory, but it was among the European Union’s forerunners, along with the UK, in January 1973. In June 2016, 96pc of Gibraltarians voted against Brexit, but the territory’s 30,000 people were unhappily dragged from the EU, due to the 52pc overall UK vote to quit.
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My experience in Gibraltar led me to ponder its fate from 2016 onwards, which had parallels with Northern Ireland. My spell there was in autumn 1988, covering a long inquest into the killing of three IRA members who were planning to bomb a British military parade. They should have been arrested, as subsequent inquiries definitively established, but all of that is for another day.
Feelings were running very high as many bars frequented by British soldiers, sailors and airmen were off limits to me and colleagues, and I did not often disport my Irish accent, deeming silence wiser.
However, the weeks did soften the atmosphere, and we soon learned that the native Gibraltarians, Spanish-speakers with a Catholic background, were the ultimate pragmatists, with their main focus on the commercial opportunities that abound in the region.
This deal will protect future generations of British Gibraltarians and does not in any way affect our British sovereignty
Thoughts of Gibraltar returned this week as news broke of an EU-UK deal that ended all but a decade in limbo for “The Rock”.
Like last month’s EU-UK reset framework trade deal, which brought good news for Ireland, there were predictable cries of “Brexit sellout” and “betrayal of Gibraltar” from diehard Brexiteers in UK Reform and the Conservative Party.
Never knowingly undersold on Brexit rhetoric, the Daily Mail thundered about disloyalty to Gibraltar, which had held the British front line over the Mediterranean for 300 years. By contrast, Gibraltar’s head of government, First Minister Fabian Picardo, hailed the EU-UK compromise, saying it would bring stability and certainty for business.
“This deal will protect future generations of British Gibraltarians and does not in any way affect our British sovereignty,” he told the venerable newspaper, the Gibraltar Chronicle, which has been publishing continuously since 1801.
Tourists and shoppers cross the frontier into Gibraltar from Spain. Photo: Getty
As with Ireland, this EU-UK Gibraltar deal aims to avoid a hard border, this time with Spain, which is crucial to the local economy. Central to the deal is Gibraltar’s abandonment of its Vat-free rules, as demanded by Madrid, and a new “transaction tax” bringing a higher rate of import duty.
There will be no systematic identity checks on the Gibraltar-Spain border, but there is controversy around Spanish police doing checks inside Gibraltar at its airport and port.
This has been the focus of Brexiteer ire amid allegations of “sovereignty sellout”.
But all sides point to the need to facilitate the estimated 15,000 workers who cross each day in both directions for work and business, and there is now hope that there will be no return to long delays due to identity checks.
I am overdue a return to Gibraltar, and I remember affectionately the Irish links with the place, such as the school where the Christian Brothers taught
The Spanish police presence in Gibraltar mirrors the presence of French personnel at London’s St Pancras Eurostar train station and other arrangements such as US personnel at Dublin and Shannon Airports.
Yet it will remain emotive for some as Gibraltar Airport is also an RAF base.
I am overdue a return to Gibraltar, and I remember affectionately the Irish links with the place, such as the school where the Christian Brothers taught for many years and the Alameda Gardens, which feature in Joyce’s Ulysses.
I was surprised to learn there that Ireland’s most celebrated fictional heroine, Molly Bloom, was, the story goes, born in Gibraltar.
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