Take away the warm winter sunshine and palm trees and it could almost be, well, Britain. And that’s how the good folk of Gibraltar like it. To be sure, the tiny colony lies 2,000 miles from the mother country, at the southernmost tip of Spain. And yes, the view from the famous Rock (that vast hump of limestone) takes in Africa. But so what? Three centuries of British rule have made Gibraltar into everything a patriot would hold dear. “Paradise,” Solomon Levy calls it, flying a British flag above the offices of his property business. “I was born British, and I want to die British.”
These days, he can’t be quite confident of having his final wish. The reason: London politicians are reconsidering their stately rule–to the point (gasp) of discussing a joint-sovereignty deal with the colony’s old enemy, Madrid. Why? Gibraltar’s status has shifted from strategic military base to dubious tax shelter. And locals reckon Prime Minister Tony Blair has new priorities–namely, cementing his friendship with Spain, a useful ally against the Franco-German partnership in the EU. The mere idea suggests betrayal. In a colony that’s withstood 15 sieges, the old loyalties are rock solid. At the last referendum, in 1967, voters opted for the crown by 12,130 to 44–and there’s little sign that opinion has shifted.
It’s fair to say the Spanish have been hard to love. Spain has eyed the Rock ever since ceding it to Britain in 1713–nine years after it was snatched by a British-led force. For 16 years, from 1969, Spanish authorities closed the Gibraltar frontier, confining residents to their 2.5 square miles of promontory. The gates are now open–but slo-mo vehicle searches often stall traffic as long as six hours. Ferry service to Algeciras, the nearest Spanish city, has been suspended for the past 35 years. “We’ve had a lot of grief from them,” says Ivan De Haro, of the Gibraltar badminton team. Last year the Spanish authorities blocked his squad from playing in a world tournament–staged in Seville–unless they appeared in neutral colors without gibraltar on their kit.
It’s not as if Gibraltar were the site of some ethnic tug of war. The territory has developed a rich cultural blend of British, Spanish, Portuguese, Maltese and Italian. “We all get along so well that we must be the envy of other nations,” says chip-shop owner Phil Smith.
So far, Peter Caruana, head of Gibraltar’s government, is refusing to take part in any talks without having a separate voice from Britain–perhaps rightly sensing he’d be sold out. Meanwhile, he and his supporters may be thinking of simians. Local lore has it that the British will never leave Gibraltar so long as a famous colony of Barbary apes survives on the Rock. At last count, their numbers were rising fast. Will it be fast enough to stop any monkey business with Spain?
