What Spain doesn't seem to have ever understood is the strength and quality of our resilience and our determination to never renounce our homeland by passing its sovereignty to third parties. This hasn't happened in more than three hundred years, despite the harassment we have endured, and continue to endure, and it won't happen in a thousand years - no matter how many queues they put at the border and no matter how much harassment at sea - no matter how much it bothers Landaluce and his henchmen.
The harassment at the border no longer seems to depend on Marlaska or the Spanish government, but on the lunatic on duty at the moment.
As we say in our editorial, the change in foreign affairs ministers from Mrs. Arantxa González Laya to José Manuel Albares has had a detrimental effect on Gibraltar and the neighbouring region, and this is immediately evident in the response given to the United Kingdom when it complained about illegal incursions by ships flying the Spanish flag in our territorial waters. The response was another complaint, as if Gibraltar had perversely inconvenienced Spanish ships engaged in legitimate activities.
As mentioned! Mrs. Arantxa and Albares are two different matters.
The latest persistent rumor is that perhaps the signing of the Brexit treaty for Gibraltar with the European Union hinges on the collapse of the fence that divides one territory from the other. Although until very recently, Spain always considered the southern part of the isthmus as British territory. In fact, in 1908, Great Britain built the fence, and there were never any complaints, only acquiescence. The only thing Spain then emphasised was that the fence had been built one meter inside the Spanish part of the isthmus. It was later confirmed that this was not the case.
So, the isthmus is British, first by military conquest, then by virtue of possession (uti possedetis juris), and also by clear Spanish acquiescence.
Much more towards our times, there began to be a claim on the isthmus because it was said that it was not granted in the Treaty of Utrecht.
This claim contradicts the legal principle called "Estoppel," a legal principle that prevents someone from arguing something or asserting a right that contradicts what was previously said or agreed upon by law or acquiescence, which is the case with the southern isthmus. If we were to hold a plebiscite in Gibraltar where we had to choose between the fence or a treaty, the fence would win by an overwhelming majority.
People know that if the fence collapses, it will never be raised again.