Gibraltar - British or Spanish?

SEPT 23 1989

Its British and always will be

Thomas828

It's British, just as Rockall is Irish.

Alopex

what do they speak there? not using that as an argument either way just curious

tiger55

Alopex wrote: »

what do they speak there? not using that as an argument either way just curious

I was there a few years back, they speak English and Spanish.

There was a nice pub up the hill that was all painted in Newcastle FC colours. Some Irish pubs there also.

BanzaiBk

The tours of the rock itself are pretty interesting tbf, especially the caves. It's very 'british' on the outside (i.e. local cultures, etc) but idk it's quite unique in itself. Really wouldn't consider it Spanish at all tho', nowadays at least.

Son Of A Vidic

Gibraltar was a spoils of war territorial land grab, which became a strategic base for The Royal Navy. So considering it is land seized from Spain, as far as I'm concerned it belongs to Spain.

Sunnyisland

LordSutch wrote: »

The British Empire was won by the Irish, administered by the Scots & Welsh, and lost by the English.

Bit of topic

The British Empire, like a lot of successful empires such as the Ottoman and Roman ones, had a multi-ethnic aspect to it. There were people from modern-day Greece, Algeria and Iraq in Ottoman forces, but no-one would seriously suggest those people had any real responsibility for the crimes of the Ottomans.

The presence of Irish (or indeed Nepalese) troops doesnt detract from the fact the Empire were run for the benefit of the British, in particular the English ruling class (which isnt to deny the Irish got some benefit)

tiger55

Corvus Maximus wrote: »

Gibraltar was a spoils of war territorial land grab, which became a strategic base for The Royal Navy. So considering it is land seized from Spain, as far as I'm concerned it belongs to Spain.

Maybe America should give the land back to the Indians and deport the Irish Americans?:P

V Eight

Gibraltar is British but the next owners will probably be Chinese once they buy up all the European debts.

nocal

The local legend states that as long as the monkeys remain on the rock then Gib willl be British - bizarrely enough the monkeys are let out for the tourists and then locked back in cages. I think they have an easy life and are the real overlords of the rock. I welcome them in this role.

Fratton Fred

BanzaiBk wrote: »

The tours of the rock itself are pretty interesting tbf, especially the caves. It's very 'british' on the outside (i.e. local cultures, etc) but idk it's quite unique in itself. Really wouldn't consider it Spanish at all tho', nowadays at least.

And Spain was a small, shy retiring nation I suppose?

Spain has colonies they acquired the same way.

IcedOut

Spanish

Scotland is Spanish too

dubtom

nocal wrote: »

The local legend states that as long as the monkeys remain on the rock then Gib willl be British - bizarrely enough the monkeys are let out for the tourists and then locked back in cages. I think they have an easy life and are the real overlords of the rock. I welcome them in this role.

I was on that rock in September,there were no cages, actually you would want
to be a real Tarzan to round up that lot of apes, the older ones were quite aggressive.
On the subject of Spanish or British,I was surprised at the amount of Spanish speaking peoples there, most of the cafe's and shops had Spanish accented people working there, they may have came across the border to work, I don't know.When school finished the majority of children had the dark skinned Spanish look to them and babbled in Spanish,just like they do here. On the very plus side smokes were 18 pounds for 200 or 35 for 500 ozs of Golden virginia.
Why would anyone vote to be a part of mainland Spain when your cost of living would rise 3fold?

lorrim

English is the official language but all the locals speak Spanish. The unofficial is Llanito, kinda mixture of Spanish, some Hebrew and Genoese.... They tend to switch languages a couple of times mid sentence, very strange

passarellaie

HavingCrack wrote: »

Tiocfaidh Armani wrote: »

So a load of Spaniards come and settle of an island off England and claim it as Spanish? No they can't, so a bit like the Falklands, only the Brits who would so arrogant to claim little pieces thousands of miles from their shore as their own.

FFS, out of all examples you had to bring into it the Falklands is most definately British. Argentina has no claim over it whatsoever, Argentina didn't even exist when the islands were first settled.

Ah yes and all those French/German/Belgian/Italian/American/Portugese/Dutch/Swedish/Greek/Turkish/Russian colonies are irrelevant yeah?

The English in 1833 attacked and expelled the Argentine legal occupation of the islands.Argentina obtained its independence from Spain in 1810 and the Malvinas were part of the newly independent republic

poisonated

R P McMurphy wrote: »

It is a pretty horrible place as is the Spanish town on its border

Yeah La linea is a bit of a kip. Really nice Argentinean restaurant there though. Alcaidesa is a lovely spot though!

I like the monkies and the cheap booze in Gibraltar. That is all that matters.

HavingCrack

passarellaie wrote: »

The English in 1833 attacked and expelled the Argentine legal occupation of the islands.Argentina obtained its independence from Spain in 1810 and the Malvinas were part of the newly independent republic

How much of the history have you left out there? Please include the events from 1764 to 1833 before you start making comments that simply are not true. The Argentine claim to the island's as the successor state from Spain and the Untied Provinces of River Plate is extremely spurious at best and in fact the islands were original British before a Spanish attack on them which ended in a de-facto ceasefire.

Anyway, we're going off-topic.

mlumley

where do i go from here wrote: »

Are Ceuta and Melilla Spanish or Moroccan?

Beat me to it.


BRITISH.

passarellaie

HavingCrack wrote: »

passarellaie wrote: »

The English in 1833 attacked and expelled the Argentine legal occupation of the islands.Argentina obtained its independence from Spain in 1810 and the Malvinas were part of the newly independent republic

How much of the history have you left out there? Please include the events from 1764 to 1833 before you start making comments that simply are not true. The Argentine claim to the island's as the successor state from Spain and the Untied Provinces of River Plate is extremely spurious at best and in fact the islands were original British before a Spanish attack on them which ended in a de-facto ceasefire.

Anyway, we're going off-topic.

well if they were so sure of their rights why did they indulge in their usual ethnic cleanseing.The English have no right whatsover to be in South America.Whats spurious about the fact the islands were governed from Buenos Aires easily the cloesest capital.Get over it te Empires over and with Europe in the mess its in now it wont be long until old Admiral Brown will see the Malvinas Argentine again

tfitzgerald

I think it belongs to Spain

stovelid

I'm afraid to proffer a political opinion on such a hugely strategic and important land mass as Gibraltar.

Victor

where do i go from here wrote: »

Are Ceuta and Melilla Spanish or Moroccan?

Ahem! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plazas_de_soberan%C3%ADa

HLecter

The fact that this question exists says a lot.

I suppose im not answering the question itself here.
But just consider what Gibraltar is.
Its 2km sq of strategic territory within a walking distance of a large Spanish town, the people come and go, to and from that town everyday in every variety of business and leisure.
The Spanish neighbors work and travel into and out of Gibraltar with absolute minimum fuss passing through a mini border thing.

Now Gibraltarians can freely live in Spain as they are British and so part of the EU.
However, its not like that for the Spanish (or other EU members), they must approach the Gibraltar govt, their neighbors within walking distance, even though they may commute, work and shop there.

Theres an obvious bias toward not allowing residence of Spaniards in case they begin to take up space and influence the place too much.
They have good reason to assume this would be the case as naturally humans do that especially if they're just down the road and their job is in Gibraltar.

This strange situation exists because London backs the place diplomatically for its own interests, otherwise it would naturally be ruled by the Spanish who are greater in numbers that the residents.

tl;dr

So basically its a private racist fortress with Britain as the doorman, you can be a citizen so long as you're on team Britain and not a spic. You can also live in Spain and make use of all Spain's facilities when you want as the Spanish cant do anything about it or else they'll have problems with Britain.
Plus you can pull the self-determination card for moral effect, even though in fairness its not really a country.

It says a lot about what Britain is, as do the Malvinas/Falklands.

(incidentally both these places probably do more damage than good to Britain)

(well ..except if there's oil in the Falklands)

rossie1977

Tiocfaidh Armani wrote: »

So a load of Spaniards come and settle of an island off England and claim it as Spanish? No they can't, so a bit like the Falklands, only the Brits who would so arrogant to claim little pieces thousands of miles from their shore as their own.

more than british empire undertook imperialism unfortunately, they just did it better than most, what about hawaii

Tiocfaidh Armani wrote: »

No and I never said it was. It's apart of the mainland right down the bottom of Spain nearly touching Africa.

My question was can a load of Spaniards jump in a boat settle into an island and claim it as Spain

they did actually and called them the canaries, those islands are 800-900 miles from mainland spain, gibraltar is 950-1000 miles from london

anyway here we are 8 pages in and nobody has mentioned the monkeys

HLecter

rossie1977 wrote: »

anyway here we are 8 pages in and nobody has mentioned the monkeys

a'rite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZGG6gAMWeg

Son Of A Vidic

tiger55 wrote: »

Maybe America should give the land back to the Indians and deport the Irish Americans?:P

I can PM you and explain what the thread is about if you wish, the clue is in the title.

parrai

spritish

Giruilla

France

mongoman

Fratton Fred wrote: »

All the usual Brit haters will vote Spanish (you could put outer mongolian or British and they would vote outer mongolian tbh) and everyone else will vote British.

Brit haters? Now stop that oul bullshít. Alternatively I could say the usually old imperialistic, pro-Zionist, extreme right-wingers will vote for the British. But that would be just making silly generalisations, for some posters anyway.

Son Of A Vidic

Maybe I missed it, but did the OP actually put forward an opinion at all?