Britain: Shits its pants politically on the regular for the last 10 years

Britain: Attempts to have its cake and eat it by asking for an even better deal than it already has - the best deal of any member state in the EU.

Britain: Didnt bother (deliberately) to look at border issues in its territories as the populists were busy feeding a load of bullshit to the public.

Britain: Act like absolute bellends in the European parliament on the regular because the public are morons electing morons into seats.

Britain: Gurning morons in the news talking about how they've waited 40 years for freedom.

The EU: One of our paying member states with veto powers has a problem with the UK trying to have its cake and eat it AGAIN by not handling the absolute dichotomy in wishes of the people of Gibraltar with it's current political course and wants us to babysit with them in government to shut the local populace up about how much they want to be in the EU. So like, we're having to be pro Spain on this issue, that's how the club works.

Britain: ANGERY NOW. For some reason.

Like I'm so tired of the level of latent moronicity I see from my own country that I cant even get mad about this, the EU pretty much have to take Spain's side. The UK should ask Gibraltar what they want, they cant be ruled by the UK and be 96% Remain voting, our dumdum public ruined that for everyone, so you have to make a hard, heartbreaking choice now, pick the UK or we can negotiate your return to the EU as a Spanish territory (NEWSFLASH WE WONT DO THAT BECAUSE ITS A BAD LOOK FOR THE POLITICOS IF AFTER WE LEAVE WE IMMEDIATLY HAVE TO START THINKING ABOUT RETURNING TERRITORIES TO EU NATIONS)

I FUCKING HATE MY COUNTRY MORE WITH EACH PASSING DAY. IT'S LIKE WATCHING A FAMILY MEMBER SLOWLY BECOMING A NON FUNCTIONING ALCOHOLIC AND NOT BEING ABLE TO EVEN HELP THEM.

TLDR: BABYRAGE I'M OFF TO THE SHOP TO BUY POP.

Spain don’t think they’re going to get Gibraltar back or anything. They make the right noises from time to time for a domestic audience just like Farage, Rees-Mogg and Johnson would if the Spanish owned Cornwall.

The issue with all of the above is simply that it disregards the actual people’s lives. I’m not sure why the people who live in Gibraltar (who certainly didn’t vote for Leave) need to bear the brunt of the EU’s response to the UK shitting its pants multiple times as you say. Remember - it’s the EU making this choice. This “what choice do they have” thing doesn’t stand up: there’s always a choice, and this is the wrong moral choice regardless of club rules.

Also remember the need to be very specific and unambiguous in arguments. What we’re talking about here is the EU’s apparent commitment to exclude a part of the UK from trade talks which involve... the UK. And the effects this decision has on the lives of people who live in this part of the UK.

This position is all we should be arguing about. Not whether Gibraltar should be Spanish or British (different point), not whether the EU has to back member states (it does, but certainly not in this weird specific method). It’s not about how shitty the Uk government is and has been (it’s been the worst player in all of this, I think we all agree)

monkey wrote:

Really not understanding the passion this is igniting. The EU are simply stopping Britain from fucking Spain by making sure they come to a mutually agreeable solution over border issues. The same way they stopped Britain from fucking Ireland. The Gibraltans aren’t pawns in this anymore than the Northern Irish were. They’re just both allied to Britain who doesn’t give a fuck about either of them.

I think the commitment to letting Spain veto Gibraltar being part of the UK trade agreement with the EU, to any extent, is a shitty choice that absolutely uses the people who live there as pawns - it’s saying “agree with our trade deal the way we want it or we’ll make life very hard for you via this issue, regardless of what the people who live on the rock want”

Those two things don’t seem equivalent to me. Why should Gibraltar be on the negotiating table for EU/UK deal?

Sorting out Gibraltar ownership via bilateral talks is a separate issue, or at least should be, no?

Happy to be shown that I’ve not understood the implications of the decisions properly. However it seems to me that a mutually agreeable solution to deal with borders is included in the whole EU/UK deal thing, regardless of where those borders are: Ireland, channel, North Sea, Gibraltar...

The issue appears to be that the EU is saying, regardless of the whole EU/UK deal which would cover all borders, Spain would be allowed to specifically veto / exclude Gibraltar from that deal -potentially scuppering the whole thing, or potentially screwing the gibraltans. And when I think about why the EU would do this, I can only come up with “it helps their negotiations”, and that seems shitty to me.

Funkstain wrote:

Happy to be shown that I’ve not understood the implications of the decisions properly. However it seems to me that a mutually agreeable solution to deal with borders is included in the whole EU/UK deal thing, regardless of where those borders are: Ireland, channel, North Sea, Gibraltar...

The issue appears to be that the EU is saying, regardless of the whole EU/UK deal which would cover all borders, Spain would be allowed to specifically veto / exclude Gibraltar from that deal -potentially scuppering the whole thing, or potentially screwing the gibraltans. And when I think about why the EU would do this, I can only come up with “it helps their negotiations”, and that seems shitty to me.

How does it help the EU? Realistically, the EU don't care about this small island with 30000 people on it. What they want is to keep Britain as closely aligned as possible to keep some semblance of what was in place regarding trade. Pretty certain the EU would happily side with the UK if it helped the trade talks on this.

And again, this issue was known way back in 2016. It was raised as a potential problem. It should have been one of the key things pushed to get sorted before, so that the EU could have been neutral.

And giabralta isn't making this easy, as rouj has pointed out. They want to remain but be part of the UK. That's going to be a problem.

Well that's geopolitics, being in a union with each other, we as a continent didn't have to play those games anymore.

That's over now.

Oh he got the Nintendo Thrii, nice.

I think with Gibraltar it is worth pointing out that they voted for the UK to remain in the EU as we all did/didn't. No one country or territory voted purely for their own region.
The distinction is more important with Gibraltar than a country that in theory could be self sufficient like Scotland.

Given that they have also expressed in the past strong feelings of remaining in the UK I dont think it is as simple as to say they want to remain in the EU by any means necessary.

Myself and Cinty have been banging the same drum here and it seems to be consistently muddied and ignored in anger towards England/Westminster.

The people of Gibraltar should be asked what they want for their future given the scenario they are in currently. This doesnt have to be a referendum although it could be, however their government should be leading this, instead they are being sidelined primarily by the EU and Spain.

Agreed.
I have a feeling though they would choose UK and the way Spain are going about things would suggest they think the same.

Even if they did choose UK it should be easy enough to come to a solution, if we can have an Irish Sea border we can draw a line around Gibraltar's coast as well.

My annoyance comes from Spain and in turn the EU attempting to shut down any conversation beyond Spain get Gibraltar.

The reality is, this is the shit that starts wars. I'm not saying it will but this is how they start.

In reference to the news today?
Posturing is all. He has already bent with Northern Ireland.

.

LivDiv wrote:

Agreed.
I have a feeling though they would choose UK and the way Spain are going about things would suggest they think the same.

Even if they did choose UK it should be easy enough to come to a solution, if we can have an Irish Sea border we can draw a line around Gibraltar's coast as well.

My annoyance comes from Spain and in turn the EU attempting to shut down any conversation beyond Spain get Gibraltar.

The reality is, this is the shit that starts wars. I'm not saying it will but this is how they start.

Worth noting that they did have a referendum in 2002 about shared sovereignty by way of a proposal from the UK and it was rejected by a huge amount. I would take that to mean they want to remain under UK rule in effect

This creates the dilemma because every day 10000 Spanish commit onto the rock. Not an easy thing to do after brexit. Saying we an have an Irish sea border ignores the problems that border creates.

Funkstain wrote:

So weird that the focus of Cinty's anger still seems to be lost here. That focus is on the EU, and the way they seem to have chosen to use Gibraltar as a bargaining chip in negotiations when they didn't have to, and when it seems wrong to have done so. They can and should include all UK territories in both negotiations AND joint outcome of those negotiations, and letting Spain say "yep we're fine with all that shit but not as regards this territory, fuck them". This will have the obvious result of either scuppering the negotiations as a whole, or fucking over the inhabitants of the rock. Is this not clear?

Everything else (whether Gibraltar should really be part of Spain or the UK; whether the inhabitants voted for leave or remain; etc) isn't related to why he's pissed off. Doesn't that make sense to anyone?

...thank you.