Borders, boots, and Brexit: What’s behind the Gibraltar and Spain impasse?

Some kind of solution is in the interest of all parties and the one being pursued is that Gibraltar be part of Schengen, an area without internal border controls. The border between Gibraltar and Spain – which started out as a fence erected in 1909 to stop dogs with tobacco strapped to their backs running across the isthmus – would be no more and there would be free movement of people and goods between Gibraltar and Spain. However, the EU insists that Spain would then have responsibility for the EU’s external border and the idea that Spanish officials would be on Gibraltarian territory is something close to anathema for many Gibraltarians as it triggers a profound anxiety of a Fascist and irridentist Spain which shut the border in 1969. This is an anxiety sharpened by the electioneering of the right-wing Vox party whose leader, Santiago Abascal, said anything short of sovereignty over Gibraltar would be a ‘betrayal’, and the recovering of sovereignty over Gibraltar was in the centre right People’s Party’s (PP) July manifesto.

For Gibraltarians, the idea of ‘Spanish boots on the ground’ is a profound red line. One current proposal is that Frontex, the European Union Border and Coastguard Agency, maintain the Schengen border for a four-year transition period after which Spanish officials take over. The Gibraltar Government is quite clear that this is unacceptable.

The border has a profound significance for Gibraltarian identity. Even when crossing it can be hot and tiring and deeply frustrating, it also provides a deep sense of security for Gibraltarians. Without the border not only do Gibraltarians feel physically threatened but there are profound identitarian issues too, since that border – mental and physical – has a role in maintaining Gibraltarian identity. It is difficult to exaggerate the anxiety the prospect of uniformed Spanish officials on Gibraltarian soil produces among Gibraltarians, and this is especially so when not only Spain’s far-right Vox party but increasingly the PP are reviving a nationalist politics long thought defunct although in the recent Spanish elections it is widely understood that the PP’s willingness to govern with Vox cost them votes.