From a purely geographical point of view, it is so absurd that there is even a debate about to which land mass Gibraltar "belongs" to. As a colonialist, I would find it very difficult to justify my own behaviour nowadays.
I think the twp main problems are not who Gibraltar belongs to, but 1. Gibraltar is that it is kind of a tax haven next to one of th areas of Spain with more poverty and unemployment, which is also one of the main drug entrances of the country. This combibation is explosive and really problematic for the people in the Campo de Gibraltar, especially the youth. 2. The people of Gibraltar must also be sovereign and don't want to belong to Spain, so I think we should respect that.
I think this kind of agreement make a compromise, integrating better Gibraltar with the area, making it possible for the people around to benefit from the Gibraltar's economy, bridging Gibraltar and Spain closer, while respecting the sovereignity of the people of Gibraltar.
However, I must say, a similar agreement could be done with Gibraltat belonging to Spain, which I would consider fairer, but still not the most important point.
I assume you're also in favour of Ceuta and Melilla being given to Morocco over the wishes of the people whos ancestors have lived there for centuries?
The difference of course being that Gibraltar used to be Spanish, while Ceuta and Melilla never have been parts of Morocco. Portugal has more claim to those two enclaves than Morocco ever did.
I mean they said pretty clearly that they should respect the wishes of sovereignty for Gibraltar, so presumably they would also extend the same to Ceuta and Melilla.
I think in a very abstract sense I agree that exclaves like this are weird and it would be cleaner if they didn't happen (Gibraltar returned to Spain, Ceuta and Melilla returned to Morocco), but that's thinking of this as a systems design problem rather than one that cares about people. I recognise that this is not an empathetic view, and my own opinion is worthless and I hold onto it very weakly.
Gibraltar has been part of the UK for over 300 years and the people are all UK citizens. Forcing those people out or seizing the land from them would be the definition of colonialism, yes. And exclaves exist all around the world. Geography has never really meant anything in national terms. Spain has a piece of land on Africa and I don't think they plan on giving that up.
My definition of colonialism generally involves people being subjugated and being treated as less and involuntarily part of an empire. People in Gibraltar are British citizens with full rights by definition.
Land borders that one doesn't like doesn't equate to colonialism. It's just a land border that you don't like. The people of Gibraltar voted almost 100% to be British on more than one occasion. Trying to make them not British is the definition of colonialism
Each of these countries, enclaves, territories, settlements, borders have massive amounts of history that shape why they are the way they are, and attempting to say "this rule should apply equally to all of them" shows a huge misunderstanding of why they are unique.
"Colonialism" is a weird Western guilt fetish that some others successfully milk.
After 10 generations, the people are every bit as local as the previous population was. 300 years is such an abyss of time that most of us would fail to name a single of our ancestors by name.
Kladsko was a Czech city from approx. 1000 to 1742. The old town still looks a bit like very small Prague [0]. Was lost in a war (to the Prussians no less), it is gone, not our anymore. Tough luck. Others live there now, it is theirs.
> "Colonialism" is a weird Western guilt fetish that some others successfully milk
Colonialism is the historical basis of almost all of global society today. It's not at all weird to be concerned with it when it still drives so much of the relative power dynamics between states and between people(s) today.
The example you're giving of Czechia and Prussia simply isn't an example of a colonial action.
There is one main difference, that makes UN recognizes Gibraltar as a colony and not Ceuta and Melilla: days before Gibraltar was conquered 100% of the people that lived there was moved out. This is why Gibraltar is a colony and Ceuta and Melilla not. So I don't have clear opinion if people in Gibraltar should have auto-determination or not.
I was not talking about any of the points you mention, I was refering to the geographical facts alone. Wouldn't you agree that in general it is kind of silly to claim ownership of a piece of land that is far, far away from your own country?
I was born in a country that has islands and I live in a different country that consists exclusively of islands. The islands spread out thousands of miles in various directions. Land being far apart is just a reality of how countries work.
The distance from London to Gibraltar is closer than the distance from London to Bermuda, but nobody finds that weird. France has French Polynesia on the opposite side of the world. Russia has Kaliningrad. Norway has Svalbard. South Africa has another country, Lesotho, right in the middle of it. India wraps around Bangladesh like a tentacle. Azerbaijan has a random piece of land and makes a sandwich out of Armenia. Spain has islands directly west of Morocco. France has land on South America.
The whole world has freaky borders. The only clean borders are places like Wyoming and Colorado.
I would add natural navigation barriers such as rivers and lakes (and some, but not all, mountain ranges) to the list of "clean" borders. They're not straight lines, but they're a natural place to site a border.
There are many, MANY islands scattered around Earth's oceans. Not all of them have the resources to be self-sufficient, so any inhabitants have to import goods from somewhere. There are two options: either each island is its own country, or some islands belong to some other country. Given how easy it is to navigate to most islands (some of them are in harder-to-navigate straits), it doesn't make much practical difference whether the owning country is close or far away.
So no, as a general rule I can't agree. I can certainly agree that there are some rather silly cases, but it's just not practical for all islands to be self-governing, so I can't agree with the general rule you propose.
That may all be true, but you’re talking about voluntary affiliations here.
Colonies are rarely ceded voluntarily, but are usually the result of an invasion or a lost conflict. The fact that this is no longer the case with Gibraltar today, because its inhabitants value the benefits of belonging to Britain, is simply a consequence of the time that has passed since then. It does not automatically undo the imperialist actions of the past.
There are many more places like this, e.g. Point Roberts[1].
> Questions about ceding the territory to the United Kingdom and later to Canada have been raised since its creation; however, its status has remained unchanged.
The British government have a strong, well-established (since ~1950), and arguably inflexible attitude towards "right to self-determination".
Meaning: the people who live in a place get to decide who governs them and their society.
People in Gibraltar, The Falklands, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland all have different wants, needs and asks of the UK, and the UK honours all of them. There are other overseas territories with different relationships, plus the Commonwealth too.
If that ask changes (and in Northern Ireland it likely will in our lifetimes, the others less so), the governance will change.
Sometimes there is an ask for a closer relationship through the British Commonwealth (such as South Africa). Sometimes there is an ask for the UK to go away, thanks but no thanks (such as Malta). Each relationship is handled individually, but through a lens of self-determination. That's the priority in the FCO, in Parliament, in UK media. If a tiny nation wants to be British, the UK will go to war over it despite it making little sense (Falklands). If a tiny nation wants independence despite tactical advantage for UK to keep it, independence will be fought for (Malta happened, Diego Garcia is a WIP - watch this space). Where there is division (Northern Ireland), the majority view is observed, but with democratic and cultural structures created to try and make sure minority views have a voice in that governance.
That said, there is a caveat: observance of treaties tend to over-ride local preference in some cases, so if there is a legal argument to ignore the wishes of the locals, those wishes may be ignored: Hong Kong is the most prominent example of this in recent times (locals seemed to want to stay British, China said the 100-year agreement was up and there'd be no renewal, end of, so China it became).
Diego Garcia is another example, which has got messy because of the Whitehouse not understanding the UK's perverse inclination towards local democracy and the right to self-determination (see also non-UK entities the Whitehouse has not understood well: Greenland, absurd noises about Canada, and so on).
When able, the UK has consistently been committed to restoring governance to a local population's preferred model peacefully since ~1950 (India being the last real mess), and if the people of Gibraltar want to be governed by the Spanish, they'd be governed by the Spanish within ~2-3 years.
The idea that local people should have no say in this because "it's obvious" who "they belong to", is the colonialist notion here. A land isn't about geography. It's about people. It took a long time for the UK to understand this. Eventually they did. Most European colonial powers did. Others are still trying to catch up, it seems.
It belongs to the people who live there. While you may think places like Point Roberts should be forcibly moved to Canada, or Ceuta should be forcibly moved to Morocco, I'm of the opinion of self determination, as is the global view based on the United Nations, who recognizes self-determination as the right of all peoples to freely determine their political status and pursue their economic, social, and cultural development
That's the same, whether it's Gibraltar, Scotland, Cornwall, the Canary Islands, Ceuta, Taiwan, Falklands, Cyprus, Texas, Point Roberts, Crimea, Canada, Greenland, etc etc.
We can argue about the thresholds needed, the length of time of residence ("squatters rights" etc), the minimum size of a given area, but the principal remains.
Gibraltar have had two referendums on whether they want to be a part of Spain or the UK, and they have voted with an absolutely insane majority to choose to be part of the UK in both cases. This isn't like Brexit, or Scotland's IndyRef - there was a 96% turnout and a 99% vote in favour of the UK in 1967, and an 88% turnout with a 99% vote in favour again in 2002.
Why does Britain have any say in the people who live in, say, Liverpool? Because that's historically been British territory. So what's the difference? Only real difference I can see is length of history (a few hundred years vs. nearly a thousand years). But as far as I'm concerned, a few hundred years vs. nearly a thousand years doesn't make much difference. I'd argue that any territory that has belonged to country X for longer than all of its inhabitants have been alive has a pretty fair claim to be historical territory of country X, and should continue being part of country X unless there's a very good reason otherwise. (Such as a valid treaty, a clear referendum, and so on).
It gets all complicated and messy when war is involved, of course. I'm talking about peaceful transfers of ownership here.
So you’re suggesting amnesia and ignoring the fact that Gibraltar wasn’t a blank spot on the map before it was annexed by the British. I think that’s a very one-sided view.
Pretty much nowhere was a blank spot on the map before the current inhabitants took it over from the previous ones. Nor was it a blank spot when the previous inhabitants took it over from the ones who came before them. Many places in the world have changed hands dozens of times over the years, belonging first to the Babylonian Empire, then to the Medes and the Persians, then to the Romans, then... and so on, and so on. If you start counting past conquest as needing to be kept track of, you quickly end up in a maze of twisty little battles, all different. Where do you draw the line and say "Okay, well, the Romans count as being the original owners, but not the Medes or the Persians?"
My opinion is that what your distant ancestors did should not be held against you — go far enough back and pretty much everyone has some ancestors who were good people, and some who did flat-out evil things — and that what happened 200 years ago is not a good argument for overturning the status quo. Some exceptions could apply, but "my ancestors took this land by force X number of years ago" is true of just about everyone, everywhere. The only sane thing to do is to hold the past lightly and consider what is the right thing for the current inhabitants today.
This is all true. Yet, all I’m hearing is "Water under the bridge! Annexion is just a thing humans do, get over it." and I think that’s too easy to say when you aren’t, for example, of African heritage.
I simply believe that there are some historical events that are more inhumane (for the lack of a better word) than others. Where would you draw the line of acceptance if your country were to invaded, traded, or otherwise knocked down under the power of a foreign force? As I stated before: Was it a true (political, economical, defensive, ...) need for Britain to claim Gibraltar or was it great power politics aka greed disguised as such need?
What you said was "why should Britain have any say in these matters?"; the question of "Did Britain have a need to claim Gibraltar back when?" is a different question entirely, which I am not qualified to answer, having never studied Gibraltar's history. I have studied a little, just a little, of African history, though — and I don't think you would have brought it up as an example if you knew much about it. Because warfare between different nations/tribes/empires/whatever (the terms have been different at various times) was a constant factor. To the point that for some countries, their lives were actually improved by being occupied by a foreign invader. Not all, and certainly not if the foreign invader was Belgium. (Goodness gracious, the Belgian occupation of Congo was a neverending parade of horribles).
But Africa is such a huge continent, with such a variety of countries (each with their own complicated history) that pretty much any generality you can make about Africa is going to be wrong about large portions of the continent, and about large portions of the history of its various countries. It's perhaps not such a good example to talk about an entire complex continent for a simple point, so I should stop rambling on about it. (But I do recommend finding a book about the empire of Aksum sometime. It's fascinating).
It has always been thus. If you don't like the outcome of a war of conquest, you'll most likely have to start another war of conquest to try and get a different outcome.
Somewhere between is reasonable to debate, but many people won't even agree on the principal of self determination, at least not consistently. Personally I wouldn't put the threshold longer than a human lifetime
> After years of negotiation involving Spain, the EU and the UK, the solution has been to align Gibraltar with the European customs union and the Schengen European free travel zone.
> Travellers arriving from countries outside Schengen, such as the UK, will have to show their passports to Gibraltarian and Spanish officials at the territory's airport and port.
So an L for the UK as Gibraltar has again freedom of movement to the EU (that edit: half the British hated so much), and lack thereof to the UK...
It's really ridiculous how little discussion there was about places like Gibraltar and Northern Ireland before the Brexit vote.
Looks like NI voted ~55% remain and Gibraltar ~95% remain, but too bad, England voted ~53% leave, so screw all you little overseas territories with actual land borders who are most directly impacted.
As someone from one of the territories mentioned, it was frustrating in the run-up to the referendum, and immediately after it, watching the local media try to get the view of English voters as to how they thought that was supposed to work.
The impression I got was leave voters either thought it would all work out somehow, or that they cared so little about the non GB territories to the point that they felt they didn't need to address to question.
And places like London, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, York, Warwick voted 60% to remain but still got taken out. Places like Oxford and Cambridge were over 70% remain.
What should have happened was the ability for any person to retain their European citizenship, or if under 18 choose on their 18th birthday. Then the remainers would not have had their rights stripped away.
The catch being if more than 50% of adults took this up, then the UK would not leave.
Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain. Wales was more mixed.
Northern Ireland got the best deal of the three. Thanks to the Good Friday Agreement, people there can get Irish (and therefore EU) passports.
This is a perennial issue in Scottish politics, but Scotland, unlike Northern Ireland, and maybe Kent, does not have a land border with the EU.
My personal hope was that the UK would remain in the EU, but both the EU and UK would take a look at themselves. Instead both are heading more and more towards censorship and heavy control of their citizens.
The Good Friday deal doesn't entitle everyone born in NI to Irish Citizenship. (anymore). It's a little more complicated than that for people born in the last 20 years.
> Since 1 January 2005, if you are born in Northern Ireland, you can claim Irish citizenship if your parent (or parents) are either British or Irish citizens, or one of them has lived on the island of Ireland for at least 3 out of the 4 years immediately before your birth.
> unlike Northern Ireland, and maybe Kent, does not have a land border with the EU.
NI's Land Border with Ireland is a "special" border. Ireland isn't in the Schengen Area (IIRC Cyprus is the only other EU country that isn't Schengen), and as a result of that has passport checks at all arrival areas - this is _because_ of the border with NI already. It was already special cased, and thankfully hasn't ended up with a UN buffer zone as a result of this mess.
Of course there aren't passport checks on planes or boats between Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland, but that only applies to Irish and British citizens.
On planes/boats between Northern Ireland and Great Britain there aren't passport checks, but they can and do check your passport.
> Of course there aren't passport checks on planes or boats between Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland, but that only applies to Irish and British citizens.
And the only way to enforce that is to not enforce it all, or to check everyone for documents. Both cork and Dublin airports have a manned border check for all inbound flights (can’t speak for other airports) but a passport isn’t required. If you fly between European countries there’s no border check _at all_. (Your airline may check but that’s different).
> On planes/boats between Northern Ireland and Great Britain there aren't passport checks, but they can and do check your passport.
That’s a domestic flight so yeah. Anecdotally I don’t think I’ve ever been stopped for a passport check in 15 years of flying between the Uk and Belfast.
The UK will eventually demand the return of freedom of movement of people and goods, for exactly the same reasons as it entered the EU in the first place. Might take another 20 years though.
Looks like we have a lot of British "nationalists" leavers downvoting everything here.
I mean, you comment is basically a fact: Brexit implied losing Schengen, it was part of it from day 0. Putting back Gibraltar in Schengen is a defeat for Brexit supporters.
EDIT: not Schengen, sorry, although I'm pretty sure I just used my national (European) ID to go to London many many years ago and not my passport.
> Brexit implied losing Schengen, it was part of it from day 0. Putting back Gibraltar in Schengen.
Gibraltar isn't going into the Schengen, it's just going to follow all of the rules of the Schengen area. It's always(?) required a passport check anyway. It's definitely semantics, though!
> EDIT: not Schengen, sorry, although I'm pretty sure I just used my national (European) ID to go to London many many years ago and not my passport.
You could travel with ID cards pre-brexit. The Schengen area has _no_ checks on the borders, so you don't even need an ID card. (However, the place you're travelling to/from may require you to carry one).
It would also be great if Ceuta and Melilla returned back to Morocco, and if Western Sahara in turn gained its independence from Morocco.
As an aside, I have always found it ironic how Spain continuously whines about Gibraltar while doing the exact same thing to Morocco. At the very least, Spain was smart/lucky enough to lobby the UN early on to not include Ceuta and Melilla in the decolonization list.
Ceuta was never Moroccan. In fact, Morocco didn't even exist when Ceuta became part of Portugal first (1415) and then Spain (either 1580 or 1640). Ceuta was a part of the Spanish Visigoth kingdom in the 7th Century before the Islamic Conquest (which for some reason we don't call colonisation). Ceuta has always had a strong connection with the rulers of Iberia.
Gibraltar, on the other hand, was just lost in the War of Spanish succession to the British Empire, and has had a British connection to them since then, but never before
Yep, it’s always justified by the fact that Morocco never existed and therefore has no claim.
But applying this logic universally would change the world map, not to mention that this justification ignores the fact that the concept of a nation state is relatively new as a norm.
Regardless, I and many others will continue to ridicule Spain’s paradoxical position on Gibraltar. Hopefully a just resolution is realized for all parties at some point in the future.
It couldn't be returned to a country that didn't exists before that places belonged to Spain. Its not the same thing, people that lived in Gibraltar was moved out. UN agrees with that, Spain politicians are to dumb to lobby anything. Check how much Spain spends in lobbying in US and how much Morocco (that its not even a democracy) spends.
“But Morocco didn’t exist!” - addressed in another reply, see sibling.
The UN argument boils down to Spain lobbying the UN early on (post-WW2) at a time when Morocco and other North African and West Asian states either did not exist yet or did not have the ability to represent themselves well at the UN.
Bad precedent for the Falkland Islands... Chagos and then Gibraltar, would force the Falklands issue to be addressed more seriously, and that would be extremely unfair, since the argentine moot argument it's a mere chauvinist temper tantrum, fueled by generation after generation of propaganda conditioning by failed governments.
Love that since you realise your position is untenable, you just refuse to address it so it doesn't evince how untenable your other positions are.
Must give props to English honesty though, most people would be savvy enough to come up with some sophism to cover this reprehensible chain of thought. But it's so ingrained in your minds that you have some divine right to your unlawful colonial holdings you just won't even bother.
PD: get the fuck out of Ireland and allow their Scots their referendum.
A reminder the british government explored handing the Falklands over to Argentina before the war. Fisheries and oil, have changed the view but in times last it was not inconceivable to transfer authority.
I'm pretty sure that if the Argentinians hasn't invaded they would probably have the Falklands by now. As it is it I would think that it would be political suicide for any UK government to even contemplate any kind of deal.
No. The reason was not economic, the reason was that the government polled the people living there and found that support for remaining British is ~100%.
Oil was found later, the fisheries were never worth maintaining the island for.
> No. The reason was not economic, the reason was that the government polled the people living there and found that support for remaining British is ~100%.
The Russians in Donetsk and Luhansk also voted to be part of Russia and not Ukraine, crazy stuff.
Man, you truly are done drinking that kool-aid, you finished the whole jug by the look of it. I'd recommend you to come back to this thread every couple of years and re-read your slop, maybe you'll learn one or two things about yourself while at it.
All you can respond with is outrage because your position is not internally consistent. You can see its morally reprehensible when the Ruzzians do it but when it comes to your country oh no then it's fine because you just need your emotional support colonies.
Like no shit one of your countrymen above said you couldn't give back Gibraltar because it'd set a bad precedent for Malvinas.
Well for one, neither of the referendums in Gibraltar were performed within 6 months of being invaded by the UK. I don't think any(?) government recognises the results of the votes in the donbas regions - except for the country running a 4 year special military operation in the region. Those referendums were held 12 years ago, and still haven't been recognised by anyone.
> All you can respond with is outrage because your position is not internally consistent
Anyone who thinks that the situation in Gibraltar in 2026 is equivalent to the situation in the Donbas in 2026 is either ignoring _literally every single reason as to why they are different_, or they're just trolling. And honestly, based on the rest of your reply I'm pretty sure you're in the latter camp.
Not according to the people who live there. Or in fact, Spain, who ceded it to the UK hundreds of years ago.
Or do you think Spain has a legal right based on geographic proximity to enforce a culture on those people despite existing treaties, laws, culture and democracy?
> to enforce a culture on those people despite existing treaties, laws, culture and democracy?
Britain has been doing this to Ireland for the last 800 years. You still continue to hold their land, oppress its people and do your best to exterminate what shred is left of their language.
If Chinggis himself rose from the grave, I'd care a lot more about his thoughts on these matters than a Brit's.
From a purely geographical point of view, it is so absurd that there is even a debate about to which land mass Gibraltar "belongs" to. As a colonialist, I would find it very difficult to justify my own behaviour nowadays.
(I am Spanish, so I might be biased)
I think the twp main problems are not who Gibraltar belongs to, but 1. Gibraltar is that it is kind of a tax haven next to one of th areas of Spain with more poverty and unemployment, which is also one of the main drug entrances of the country. This combibation is explosive and really problematic for the people in the Campo de Gibraltar, especially the youth. 2. The people of Gibraltar must also be sovereign and don't want to belong to Spain, so I think we should respect that.
I think this kind of agreement make a compromise, integrating better Gibraltar with the area, making it possible for the people around to benefit from the Gibraltar's economy, bridging Gibraltar and Spain closer, while respecting the sovereignity of the people of Gibraltar.
However, I must say, a similar agreement could be done with Gibraltat belonging to Spain, which I would consider fairer, but still not the most important point.
I assume you're also in favour of Ceuta and Melilla being given to Morocco over the wishes of the people whos ancestors have lived there for centuries?
The difference of course being that Gibraltar used to be Spanish, while Ceuta and Melilla never have been parts of Morocco. Portugal has more claim to those two enclaves than Morocco ever did.
Ceuta and Melilla are part of Spain since the fifteenth century, same as Granada and way older than the Moroccan state.
I am telling that Gibraltar people should decide which country they want to belong to, same thing with Ceuta and Melilla.
Time and time again the Gibraltar people tell Spain they don't want to be part of Spain
Time and time again Spain complains
Time and time again hypocrites
I don't mind if you believe that "land makes right" or if you believe that "people have rights", but be consistent
I am saying, for the third time, that the people of Gibraltar are sovereing and have the right to choose. Same with Ceuta and Melilla.
From my quick search, it doesn't at all seem like the majority of the people living in Ceuta and Melilla wish to be part of Morocco.
I mean they said pretty clearly that they should respect the wishes of sovereignty for Gibraltar, so presumably they would also extend the same to Ceuta and Melilla.
I think in a very abstract sense I agree that exclaves like this are weird and it would be cleaner if they didn't happen (Gibraltar returned to Spain, Ceuta and Melilla returned to Morocco), but that's thinking of this as a systems design problem rather than one that cares about people. I recognise that this is not an empathetic view, and my own opinion is worthless and I hold onto it very weakly.
Gibraltar has been part of the UK for over 300 years and the people are all UK citizens. Forcing those people out or seizing the land from them would be the definition of colonialism, yes. And exclaves exist all around the world. Geography has never really meant anything in national terms. Spain has a piece of land on Africa and I don't think they plan on giving that up.
>Gibraltar has been part of the UK for over 300 years and the people are all UK citizens.
Is this your standard for whether or not something is colonialism? Do you apply it consistently throughout, even when its inconvenient for you?
My definition of colonialism generally involves people being subjugated and being treated as less and involuntarily part of an empire. People in Gibraltar are British citizens with full rights by definition.
Land borders that one doesn't like doesn't equate to colonialism. It's just a land border that you don't like. The people of Gibraltar voted almost 100% to be British on more than one occasion. Trying to make them not British is the definition of colonialism
Each of these countries, enclaves, territories, settlements, borders have massive amounts of history that shape why they are the way they are, and attempting to say "this rule should apply equally to all of them" shows a huge misunderstanding of why they are unique.
"Colonialism" is a weird Western guilt fetish that some others successfully milk.
After 10 generations, the people are every bit as local as the previous population was. 300 years is such an abyss of time that most of us would fail to name a single of our ancestors by name.
Kladsko was a Czech city from approx. 1000 to 1742. The old town still looks a bit like very small Prague [0]. Was lost in a war (to the Prussians no less), it is gone, not our anymore. Tough luck. Others live there now, it is theirs.
[0] https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kladsko_(město)#/media/Soubor:...
> "Colonialism" is a weird Western guilt fetish that some others successfully milk
Colonialism is the historical basis of almost all of global society today. It's not at all weird to be concerned with it when it still drives so much of the relative power dynamics between states and between people(s) today.
The example you're giving of Czechia and Prussia simply isn't an example of a colonial action.
I mean, do you think the east prussia should be returned to Germany? Should West Virginia be retrieved to Virginia?
Those cases didn't involve colonisation. Though Virginia certainly did if you go back a little further.
There is one main difference, that makes UN recognizes Gibraltar as a colony and not Ceuta and Melilla: days before Gibraltar was conquered 100% of the people that lived there was moved out. This is why Gibraltar is a colony and Ceuta and Melilla not. So I don't have clear opinion if people in Gibraltar should have auto-determination or not.
I was not talking about any of the points you mention, I was refering to the geographical facts alone. Wouldn't you agree that in general it is kind of silly to claim ownership of a piece of land that is far, far away from your own country?
I was born in a country that has islands and I live in a different country that consists exclusively of islands. The islands spread out thousands of miles in various directions. Land being far apart is just a reality of how countries work.
The distance from London to Gibraltar is closer than the distance from London to Bermuda, but nobody finds that weird. France has French Polynesia on the opposite side of the world. Russia has Kaliningrad. Norway has Svalbard. South Africa has another country, Lesotho, right in the middle of it. India wraps around Bangladesh like a tentacle. Azerbaijan has a random piece of land and makes a sandwich out of Armenia. Spain has islands directly west of Morocco. France has land on South America.
The whole world has freaky borders. The only clean borders are places like Wyoming and Colorado.
I would add natural navigation barriers such as rivers and lakes (and some, but not all, mountain ranges) to the list of "clean" borders. They're not straight lines, but they're a natural place to site a border.
There are many, MANY islands scattered around Earth's oceans. Not all of them have the resources to be self-sufficient, so any inhabitants have to import goods from somewhere. There are two options: either each island is its own country, or some islands belong to some other country. Given how easy it is to navigate to most islands (some of them are in harder-to-navigate straits), it doesn't make much practical difference whether the owning country is close or far away.
So no, as a general rule I can't agree. I can certainly agree that there are some rather silly cases, but it's just not practical for all islands to be self-governing, so I can't agree with the general rule you propose.
That may all be true, but you’re talking about voluntary affiliations here.
Colonies are rarely ceded voluntarily, but are usually the result of an invasion or a lost conflict. The fact that this is no longer the case with Gibraltar today, because its inhabitants value the benefits of belonging to Britain, is simply a consequence of the time that has passed since then. It does not automatically undo the imperialist actions of the past.
Whilst I don't disagree, Spain has similar questions to answer about Ceuta and Melilla.
"Ah, but that's different!" I was told when I asked some Spanish people about the apparent hypocrisy of Spanish enclaves.
No, Ceuta and Melilla are not recognized as colonies by UN (see my previous comment about it, and you could add other historic reasons.
And, to a lesser extent, Canary Islands.
I didn't debate that.
It's unlikely you'll try to debate anything. You're interested in agitation alone.
No, I'm just thinking about things on a more abstract level and wonder whether what is taken for granted really is always a given when doing so.
There are many more places like this, e.g. Point Roberts[1].
> Questions about ceding the territory to the United Kingdom and later to Canada have been raised since its creation; however, its status has remained unchanged.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Roberts,_Washington
We should just overturn the Treaty of Utrecht, that will go well. Why not return the Netherlands to Spain while we're at it?
Spain ceded Gibraltar under the Treaty of Utrecht.
The British government have a strong, well-established (since ~1950), and arguably inflexible attitude towards "right to self-determination".
Meaning: the people who live in a place get to decide who governs them and their society.
People in Gibraltar, The Falklands, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland all have different wants, needs and asks of the UK, and the UK honours all of them. There are other overseas territories with different relationships, plus the Commonwealth too.
If that ask changes (and in Northern Ireland it likely will in our lifetimes, the others less so), the governance will change.
Sometimes there is an ask for a closer relationship through the British Commonwealth (such as South Africa). Sometimes there is an ask for the UK to go away, thanks but no thanks (such as Malta). Each relationship is handled individually, but through a lens of self-determination. That's the priority in the FCO, in Parliament, in UK media. If a tiny nation wants to be British, the UK will go to war over it despite it making little sense (Falklands). If a tiny nation wants independence despite tactical advantage for UK to keep it, independence will be fought for (Malta happened, Diego Garcia is a WIP - watch this space). Where there is division (Northern Ireland), the majority view is observed, but with democratic and cultural structures created to try and make sure minority views have a voice in that governance.
That said, there is a caveat: observance of treaties tend to over-ride local preference in some cases, so if there is a legal argument to ignore the wishes of the locals, those wishes may be ignored: Hong Kong is the most prominent example of this in recent times (locals seemed to want to stay British, China said the 100-year agreement was up and there'd be no renewal, end of, so China it became).
Diego Garcia is another example, which has got messy because of the Whitehouse not understanding the UK's perverse inclination towards local democracy and the right to self-determination (see also non-UK entities the Whitehouse has not understood well: Greenland, absurd noises about Canada, and so on).
When able, the UK has consistently been committed to restoring governance to a local population's preferred model peacefully since ~1950 (India being the last real mess), and if the people of Gibraltar want to be governed by the Spanish, they'd be governed by the Spanish within ~2-3 years.
The idea that local people should have no say in this because "it's obvious" who "they belong to", is the colonialist notion here. A land isn't about geography. It's about people. It took a long time for the UK to understand this. Eventually they did. Most European colonial powers did. Others are still trying to catch up, it seems.
It belongs to the people who live there. While you may think places like Point Roberts should be forcibly moved to Canada, or Ceuta should be forcibly moved to Morocco, I'm of the opinion of self determination, as is the global view based on the United Nations, who recognizes self-determination as the right of all peoples to freely determine their political status and pursue their economic, social, and cultural development
That's the same, whether it's Gibraltar, Scotland, Cornwall, the Canary Islands, Ceuta, Taiwan, Falklands, Cyprus, Texas, Point Roberts, Crimea, Canada, Greenland, etc etc.
We can argue about the thresholds needed, the length of time of residence ("squatters rights" etc), the minimum size of a given area, but the principal remains.
If it belongs to the people who live there, why does Britain have any say in their matters?
Because the people who live there overwhelmingly (98%–99%) vote in favour of remaining British.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Gibraltar_sovereignty_ref...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Gibraltar_sovereignty_ref...
Gibraltar have had two referendums on whether they want to be a part of Spain or the UK, and they have voted with an absolutely insane majority to choose to be part of the UK in both cases. This isn't like Brexit, or Scotland's IndyRef - there was a 96% turnout and a 99% vote in favour of the UK in 1967, and an 88% turnout with a 99% vote in favour again in 2002.
Why does Britain have any say in the people who live in, say, Liverpool? Because that's historically been British territory. So what's the difference? Only real difference I can see is length of history (a few hundred years vs. nearly a thousand years). But as far as I'm concerned, a few hundred years vs. nearly a thousand years doesn't make much difference. I'd argue that any territory that has belonged to country X for longer than all of its inhabitants have been alive has a pretty fair claim to be historical territory of country X, and should continue being part of country X unless there's a very good reason otherwise. (Such as a valid treaty, a clear referendum, and so on).
It gets all complicated and messy when war is involved, of course. I'm talking about peaceful transfers of ownership here.
So you’re suggesting amnesia and ignoring the fact that Gibraltar wasn’t a blank spot on the map before it was annexed by the British. I think that’s a very one-sided view.
Pretty much nowhere was a blank spot on the map before the current inhabitants took it over from the previous ones. Nor was it a blank spot when the previous inhabitants took it over from the ones who came before them. Many places in the world have changed hands dozens of times over the years, belonging first to the Babylonian Empire, then to the Medes and the Persians, then to the Romans, then... and so on, and so on. If you start counting past conquest as needing to be kept track of, you quickly end up in a maze of twisty little battles, all different. Where do you draw the line and say "Okay, well, the Romans count as being the original owners, but not the Medes or the Persians?"
My opinion is that what your distant ancestors did should not be held against you — go far enough back and pretty much everyone has some ancestors who were good people, and some who did flat-out evil things — and that what happened 200 years ago is not a good argument for overturning the status quo. Some exceptions could apply, but "my ancestors took this land by force X number of years ago" is true of just about everyone, everywhere. The only sane thing to do is to hold the past lightly and consider what is the right thing for the current inhabitants today.
This is all true. Yet, all I’m hearing is "Water under the bridge! Annexion is just a thing humans do, get over it." and I think that’s too easy to say when you aren’t, for example, of African heritage. I simply believe that there are some historical events that are more inhumane (for the lack of a better word) than others. Where would you draw the line of acceptance if your country were to invaded, traded, or otherwise knocked down under the power of a foreign force? As I stated before: Was it a true (political, economical, defensive, ...) need for Britain to claim Gibraltar or was it great power politics aka greed disguised as such need?
What you said was "why should Britain have any say in these matters?"; the question of "Did Britain have a need to claim Gibraltar back when?" is a different question entirely, which I am not qualified to answer, having never studied Gibraltar's history. I have studied a little, just a little, of African history, though — and I don't think you would have brought it up as an example if you knew much about it. Because warfare between different nations/tribes/empires/whatever (the terms have been different at various times) was a constant factor. To the point that for some countries, their lives were actually improved by being occupied by a foreign invader. Not all, and certainly not if the foreign invader was Belgium. (Goodness gracious, the Belgian occupation of Congo was a neverending parade of horribles).
But Africa is such a huge continent, with such a variety of countries (each with their own complicated history) that pretty much any generality you can make about Africa is going to be wrong about large portions of the continent, and about large portions of the history of its various countries. It's perhaps not such a good example to talk about an entire complex continent for a simple point, so I should stop rambling on about it. (But I do recommend finding a book about the empire of Aksum sometime. It's fascinating).
So if we conquer a place and change the people there, it's the new people who decides? or how we proceed?
It has always been thus. If you don't like the outcome of a war of conquest, you'll most likely have to start another war of conquest to try and get a different outcome.
After 500 days? No
After 500 years? Yes
Somewhere between is reasonable to debate, but many people won't even agree on the principal of self determination, at least not consistently. Personally I wouldn't put the threshold longer than a human lifetime
my experience with border control in Gibraltar (foreign car, 2023):
entering: Spanish side: passport scan, UK side: 5 second look
exiting: waving through
That can be a problem for the thousands of people that commute daily.
same experience last year, existing without having to stop was especially surprising
> After years of negotiation involving Spain, the EU and the UK, the solution has been to align Gibraltar with the European customs union and the Schengen European free travel zone.
> Travellers arriving from countries outside Schengen, such as the UK, will have to show their passports to Gibraltarian and Spanish officials at the territory's airport and port.
So an L for the UK as Gibraltar has again freedom of movement to the EU (that edit: half the British hated so much), and lack thereof to the UK...
It's really ridiculous how little discussion there was about places like Gibraltar and Northern Ireland before the Brexit vote.
Looks like NI voted ~55% remain and Gibraltar ~95% remain, but too bad, England voted ~53% leave, so screw all you little overseas territories with actual land borders who are most directly impacted.
As someone from one of the territories mentioned, it was frustrating in the run-up to the referendum, and immediately after it, watching the local media try to get the view of English voters as to how they thought that was supposed to work.
The impression I got was leave voters either thought it would all work out somehow, or that they cared so little about the non GB territories to the point that they felt they didn't need to address to question.
And places like London, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, York, Warwick voted 60% to remain but still got taken out. Places like Oxford and Cambridge were over 70% remain.
What should have happened was the ability for any person to retain their European citizenship, or if under 18 choose on their 18th birthday. Then the remainers would not have had their rights stripped away.
The catch being if more than 50% of adults took this up, then the UK would not leave.
Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain. Wales was more mixed.
Northern Ireland got the best deal of the three. Thanks to the Good Friday Agreement, people there can get Irish (and therefore EU) passports.
This is a perennial issue in Scottish politics, but Scotland, unlike Northern Ireland, and maybe Kent, does not have a land border with the EU.
My personal hope was that the UK would remain in the EU, but both the EU and UK would take a look at themselves. Instead both are heading more and more towards censorship and heavy control of their citizens.
The Good Friday deal doesn't entitle everyone born in NI to Irish Citizenship. (anymore). It's a little more complicated than that for people born in the last 20 years.
> Since 1 January 2005, if you are born in Northern Ireland, you can claim Irish citizenship if your parent (or parents) are either British or Irish citizens, or one of them has lived on the island of Ireland for at least 3 out of the 4 years immediately before your birth.
> unlike Northern Ireland, and maybe Kent, does not have a land border with the EU.
NI's Land Border with Ireland is a "special" border. Ireland isn't in the Schengen Area (IIRC Cyprus is the only other EU country that isn't Schengen), and as a result of that has passport checks at all arrival areas - this is _because_ of the border with NI already. It was already special cased, and thankfully hasn't ended up with a UN buffer zone as a result of this mess.
That said, I agree with you 98%!
Of course there aren't passport checks on planes or boats between Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland, but that only applies to Irish and British citizens.
On planes/boats between Northern Ireland and Great Britain there aren't passport checks, but they can and do check your passport.
The UK and the Republic of Ireland make up the Common Travel Area [1], the lack of passport checks didn't happen automatically.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Travel_Area
> Of course there aren't passport checks on planes or boats between Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland, but that only applies to Irish and British citizens.
And the only way to enforce that is to not enforce it all, or to check everyone for documents. Both cork and Dublin airports have a manned border check for all inbound flights (can’t speak for other airports) but a passport isn’t required. If you fly between European countries there’s no border check _at all_. (Your airline may check but that’s different).
> On planes/boats between Northern Ireland and Great Britain there aren't passport checks, but they can and do check your passport.
That’s a domestic flight so yeah. Anecdotally I don’t think I’ve ever been stopped for a passport check in 15 years of flying between the Uk and Belfast.
> freedom of movement to the EU (that the British hated so much)
A generalisation that only applied to, at most, 52% of the voting British public
> at most, 52% of the voting British public
Indeed. And, At a point in time ten years ago. In voters who skewed older.
See the Voter Flow diagram: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1pj8kzd/voters_and_...
What a brilliantly depressing graphic
The UK will eventually demand the return of freedom of movement of people and goods, for exactly the same reasons as it entered the EU in the first place. Might take another 20 years though.
Looks like we have a lot of British "nationalists" leavers downvoting everything here. I mean, you comment is basically a fact: Brexit implied losing Schengen, it was part of it from day 0. Putting back Gibraltar in Schengen is a defeat for Brexit supporters.
EDIT: not Schengen, sorry, although I'm pretty sure I just used my national (European) ID to go to London many many years ago and not my passport.
> Brexit implied losing Schengen, it was part of it from day 0. Putting back Gibraltar in Schengen.
Gibraltar isn't going into the Schengen, it's just going to follow all of the rules of the Schengen area. It's always(?) required a passport check anyway. It's definitely semantics, though!
> EDIT: not Schengen, sorry, although I'm pretty sure I just used my national (European) ID to go to London many many years ago and not my passport.
You could travel with ID cards pre-brexit. The Schengen area has _no_ checks on the borders, so you don't even need an ID card. (However, the place you're travelling to/from may require you to carry one).
The UK was not in Schengen when it was a member of the EU.
Thanks for the correction, edited the comment
Interesting, especially in view of several millions of illegal emigrants that were "legalized" recently by the Spanish government.
It wasn't millions, it was half a million. And what they're getting is permission to work in Spain, so it's unrelated to the article.
It'd be even easier if Gibraltar is returned to Spain to whom it belongs.
It would also be great if Ceuta and Melilla returned back to Morocco, and if Western Sahara in turn gained its independence from Morocco.
As an aside, I have always found it ironic how Spain continuously whines about Gibraltar while doing the exact same thing to Morocco. At the very least, Spain was smart/lucky enough to lobby the UN early on to not include Ceuta and Melilla in the decolonization list.
Ceuta was never Moroccan. In fact, Morocco didn't even exist when Ceuta became part of Portugal first (1415) and then Spain (either 1580 or 1640). Ceuta was a part of the Spanish Visigoth kingdom in the 7th Century before the Islamic Conquest (which for some reason we don't call colonisation). Ceuta has always had a strong connection with the rulers of Iberia.
Gibraltar, on the other hand, was just lost in the War of Spanish succession to the British Empire, and has had a British connection to them since then, but never before
Yep, it’s always justified by the fact that Morocco never existed and therefore has no claim.
But applying this logic universally would change the world map, not to mention that this justification ignores the fact that the concept of a nation state is relatively new as a norm.
Regardless, I and many others will continue to ridicule Spain’s paradoxical position on Gibraltar. Hopefully a just resolution is realized for all parties at some point in the future.
It couldn't be returned to a country that didn't exists before that places belonged to Spain. Its not the same thing, people that lived in Gibraltar was moved out. UN agrees with that, Spain politicians are to dumb to lobby anything. Check how much Spain spends in lobbying in US and how much Morocco (that its not even a democracy) spends.
“But Morocco didn’t exist!” - addressed in another reply, see sibling.
The UN argument boils down to Spain lobbying the UN early on (post-WW2) at a time when Morocco and other North African and West Asian states either did not exist yet or did not have the ability to represent themselves well at the UN.
In that context America should be given back, Alaska should be given back, Australia should be given back... the list goes on.
Well, in theory, they should! :) Imagine a world where expansionist acts of violent injustice could be undone.
I do not disagree, where does it stop though. We would have to go back to when Homo sapiens and Neanderthals killed each other.
We could have stopped right at the moment when ‘need’ was replaced by ‘greed’. I know, illusionary.
Bad precedent for the Falkland Islands... Chagos and then Gibraltar, would force the Falklands issue to be addressed more seriously, and that would be extremely unfair, since the argentine moot argument it's a mere chauvinist temper tantrum, fueled by generation after generation of propaganda conditioning by failed governments.
Love that since you realise your position is untenable, you just refuse to address it so it doesn't evince how untenable your other positions are.
Must give props to English honesty though, most people would be savvy enough to come up with some sophism to cover this reprehensible chain of thought. But it's so ingrained in your minds that you have some divine right to your unlawful colonial holdings you just won't even bother.
PD: get the fuck out of Ireland and allow their Scots their referendum.
A reminder the british government explored handing the Falklands over to Argentina before the war. Fisheries and oil, have changed the view but in times last it was not inconceivable to transfer authority.
I'm pretty sure that if the Argentinians hasn't invaded they would probably have the Falklands by now. As it is it I would think that it would be political suicide for any UK government to even contemplate any kind of deal.
> Fisheries and oil, have changed the view
No. The reason was not economic, the reason was that the government polled the people living there and found that support for remaining British is ~100%.
Oil was found later, the fisheries were never worth maintaining the island for.
> No. The reason was not economic, the reason was that the government polled the people living there and found that support for remaining British is ~100%.
The Russians in Donetsk and Luhansk also voted to be part of Russia and not Ukraine, crazy stuff.
In a referendum where the votes were collected by armed men entering houses, giving you the ballot, and watching that you picked the correct choice.
The vote in the Falklands was a secret ballot.
Are you genuinely comparing the referendums in Gibraltar to the current situation in Ukraine?
In both cases the settlers from an imperialist power vote their allegiance to said imperialist power.
Man, you truly are done drinking that kool-aid, you finished the whole jug by the look of it. I'd recommend you to come back to this thread every couple of years and re-read your slop, maybe you'll learn one or two things about yourself while at it.
Feel free to explain the difference.
All you can respond with is outrage because your position is not internally consistent. You can see its morally reprehensible when the Ruzzians do it but when it comes to your country oh no then it's fine because you just need your emotional support colonies.
Like no shit one of your countrymen above said you couldn't give back Gibraltar because it'd set a bad precedent for Malvinas.
> Feel free to explain the difference.
Well for one, neither of the referendums in Gibraltar were performed within 6 months of being invaded by the UK. I don't think any(?) government recognises the results of the votes in the donbas regions - except for the country running a 4 year special military operation in the region. Those referendums were held 12 years ago, and still haven't been recognised by anyone.
> All you can respond with is outrage because your position is not internally consistent
Anyone who thinks that the situation in Gibraltar in 2026 is equivalent to the situation in the Donbas in 2026 is either ignoring _literally every single reason as to why they are different_, or they're just trolling. And honestly, based on the rest of your reply I'm pretty sure you're in the latter camp.
The place is called Falkland Islands, get used to it, it will never change.
To be fair, the situation of the Falklands is very different to Gibraltar.
The Falklands were never Argentinian. The "native" inhabitants are the ones currently living there.
Not according to the people who live there. Or in fact, Spain, who ceded it to the UK hundreds of years ago.
Or do you think Spain has a legal right based on geographic proximity to enforce a culture on those people despite existing treaties, laws, culture and democracy?
> to enforce a culture on those people despite existing treaties, laws, culture and democracy?
Britain has been doing this to Ireland for the last 800 years. You still continue to hold their land, oppress its people and do your best to exterminate what shred is left of their language.
If Chinggis himself rose from the grave, I'd care a lot more about his thoughts on these matters than a Brit's.
Maybe tone down the hatred?
Sorry I hate genocide man. Should I apologize to Cromwell?
No hatred was uttered. Just a view of the world you're apparently opposed to.
What about Ceuta and Melilla?
Well, those are even funnier than Giblartar.
UN
Russia says the same thing about Ukraine.
The Basque region wants a word...
Facepalm.