The Brits have returned the Chagos Islands – or all except one (Diego Garcia) – to Mauritius and to the people who used to live there, the Chagossians. Or more likely, since they were unceremoniously chucked out back in 1969, to their descendants.
While this item may not have made a major impact on the lives of the good people who inhabit the United Kingdom, it certainly has here in Spain, with the suggestion that, well, since you’re in the mood, what about handing back Gibraltar (and, sure, maybe the Falklands too while you are at it)?
The Telegraph – a British newspaper that leans solidly to the right – says ‘Keir Starmer has refused to rule out ending British control of Gibraltar and the Falklands, amid an ongoing backlash over his Chagos Islands deal’. Yes, The Telegraph and its more conservative ‘Sun never sets on the British Empire’ readers may well become excited about the Chagos Deal, and maybe for them it will become the Suez Crisis of the 21st Century.
Mind you, at a mean height of just four feet above sea-level, the Chagossians will need to roll up their trouser-legs, as it’ll likely all be underwater by 2050 thanks to Global Warming.
I’m vaguely fond of Gibraltar. I got married there to my American bride on the second attempt. Word had reached us as we were dickering with the judge that my father had suddenly died in Madrid, so we pleaded cause of absence and returned for another try a couple of weeks later. The judge, give him his due, let us have our wedding papers and sundry costs on his shilling, making our match one of the cheapest in history (one jolly night at the Holiday Inn). A year later, we went to Paris for the honeymoon.
Then, The Express brings us: ‘Gibraltar tries to calm fears it will be returned to Spain after UK and Chagos fiasco. The people of Gibraltar have been assured by their Government that Sir Keir Starmer's decision regarding the Chagos Island will not affect their future’.
I like Gibraltar. I mean, I don’t (it’s ghastly), but I like that it’s there. Some pink glitter for the map, a change of pace and the chance to see a British bobby talking in llanito.
So, leave it alone. There are thirty four thousand Gibraltarians who want to remain British, but without going anywhere near the United Kingdom (ring any bells, Readers?). If the colony fell to Spain, then what would they do with the Gibraltarians? Leave them there, but make them do this and that – or enjoin them to take out Tarjetas de Identidad Extranjera and deprive them of the vote? Maybe give the people living in nearby San Roque ‘back’ their properties. As Gibraltar en la Corazón says (back in 1704, the British possession of Gibraltar was only formalised nine years later at at the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713), ‘…It is easy to imagine that column of men and women dragging their belongings: some children, others elderly, heads bowed, stripped... 5,000 people walking towards the hermitage of San Roque, located a few kilometres away…’
Gibraltar View from San Roque
These days, it looks lovely.
Ah, decolonisation. Gibraltar is a British problem: let Whitehall build a nice camp on Salisbury Plain for them.
Some say, well why not just give the Rock to the Spanish and give Melilla and Ceuta to the Moroccans? Easy enough if you are living in somewhere like Albacete or Torquay.
There are of course, several differences. For one, there are 170,000 Spaniards in the two North African enclaves, and right now, Spanish politicians are busy squabbling about what to do with a handful of immigrant minors stuck in the Canary Isles (another territory that Morocco claims). Since they would likely not be treated favourably by the Moroccans, I doubt that they would want to stay and at the same time it would be hard to comfortably house 170,000 indignant colonos over here in Almería and Málaga.
The population of the Falkland Isles – whose inhabitants are even more British than the Gibraltarians (they’ve been there since the 1830s) – runs to about 3,700 souls. Wiki says that there are even a few llanitos living there. They probably would rather stay where they are, too (while we are here, I wonder where the exiled malvineros are living).
It’s all well and good righting ancient wrongs, but for every victor on the one hand, there has to be an eviction on the other.