(Five-minute read)

You can rest assured that majority voting in the referendum whether to remaining or not in the EU had little grasp of the consequences of an out vote.

Certainly, neither the Good Friday Agreement or the treaty of Utrecht had any bearing on the voting in the Referendum.

Now the Rock of Gib along with 10 DUP Unionists are showing the absurdity of Brexit.

Brexit has put the Rock back in the news, with Spain being awarded a veto over future EU deals on Gibraltar – effectively giving the country its strongest hand in the territory for three centuries.

Gibraltar a peninsula on the south of Spain which was ceded by Spain under a peace treaty called Utrecht 1713 which brought an end the War of Spanish Succession between England and France

It voted 90% to stay in the EU.

Like Northern Ireland and Scotland how also voted to stay when the UK leaves, it must leave.

The Peace of Utrecht is a series of individual peace treaties that ended more than 13 years of war that had been fought in both the old and new worlds.

The first treaty signed at Utrecht was the truce between France and Portugal on 7 November, followed by the truce between France and Savoy on 14 March 1714. That same day, Spain, Great Britain, France and the Empire agreed to the evacuation of Catalonia and an armistice in Italy. The main treaties of peace followed on 11 April 1713.

Spain, which seized Gibraltar from the Moors as part of the 15th century “Reconquista”, ceded sovereignty over the Rock to the British crown “absolutely and forever without exception or impediment whatsoever”

Of course, as with all treaties, the devil is in the small print.

The treaty continued to haunt Europe.

Clause 10 of the 305-year-old treaty stipulates that the British crown was at the liberty to dispose of the rock as it pleased, but if it ever did so, preference shall always be given to the crown of Spain before any others. Madrid takes this to mean that Gibraltar would return to Spain if it were decolonised.

So it seems reasonable that if the people of Gibraltar voted 90% to stay in the EU this should be honoured in the forthcoming Brexit deal.

Of course, if this was to happen for all intended purposes the Rock of Gib would be decolonised, as will Northern Ireland be if the current deal holds.

In a nutshell, the reality of discussion in Gibraltar is exposed.

JUST WHAT IS SO IMPORTANT TO ENGLAND OR SPAIN THAT BOTH ARE WILLING TO ALLOW THE WHOLE BREXIT PROCESS TO COLLAPSE.

The economy of Gibraltar consists largely of the services sector. While being part of the European Union, the British overseas territory of Gibraltar has a separate legal jurisdiction from the United Kingdom and enjoys a different tax system.

The truth is it probably does not matter enormously to Spain to get Gibraltar back.

On the other hand, having a location at its southern tip deliberately run as a tax haven with the intention of undermining its tax revenues must be deeply aggravating, and that’s a precisely fair summary of what the UK is permitting. Of course Spain us rightly upset about that. And the EU is for this reason right to support Spain.

Ponder this though:

How many UK politicians would be brave enough to say this?

So the issue comes down to a straightforward question of why Spain or Ireland should be expected to live with a hostile tax haven seeking to undermine its laws and taxes as its immediate neighbour and the answer is, quite reasonably, that this should not be happening. In which case the solution is to take the tax haven out if Gibraltar and reunite Ireland.

At which point, I suggest, there won’t be much left to fight over. And at the same time, the issues will have been made explicit.

Is there any solution?

Shared sovereignty.

That would allow Gibraltarians and Northern Irelanders to stay in the EU and enjoy joint British and Spanish nationality- Irish British nationality.  They would both remain EU citizens, with all the rights that come from that, while keeping their current institutions and legislation. But Spain & Ireland would become a co-sovereign nation’s.

If not people living near borders between Britain and the EU are going to face a devasting future.

All human comments appreciated. Al like clicks chucked in the bin.