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Palmerston redux
FT Editorial: UK resorts to minor gunboat diplomacy over Gibraltar
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It is often forgotten that when Lord Palmerston(once British foreign minister and two times Prime Minister, who had coined the term” a nation has no eternal allies, only eternal interests”, and who advocated the two Opium Wars with China) despatched the Royal Navy to Piraeus in 1850 – helping to coin the term “gunboat diplomacy” – it was to the aid of a single Gibraltarian merchant that the fleet was sent. To redeem Don Pacifico’s honour and restore his property(he was attacked by a groups of mobs in Greece tolerated by the Greek government), the Greek port was blockaded for two months, finally extracting £500 in compensation. “Civis Romanus sum,”(Latin for “I’m a Roman citizen”, famous speech by Lord Palmerston, claiming that any British citizen in any party of the world should be effectively protected by the government) thundered Palmerston when summoned to parliament to explain his actions.
The House of Commons is not presently sitting and David Cameron struggles with Latin, as we know from his inability to translate “Magna Carta” last year. But Britain’s premier is otherwise having his own Palmerston moment. Responding to a Spanish threat to introduce hefty entry fees at the Gibraltarian frontier, his government has sent several warships to the Rock. There they will berth on the way to an exercise in the Mediterranean in what is being termed a “show of strength”.
Behind this diplomatic pantomime lies a long-running dispute about fishing rights and maritime boundaries.Temperatures have been rising since Gibraltar dumped some concrete blocks into the sea near its coast in what it termed an ecological measure, inconveniencing some Spanish fishermen. Madrid claims its intervention was to protect its citizens. The suspicion however is that Spain’s premier, Mariano Rajoy, has leapt at an opportunity to banish from the front pages a political funding scandal that threatens his government’s survival.
The possibility of either side resorting to blows is of course vanishingly remote. The border fees may be illegal under EU law. But if imposed, they will draw retaliation from Britain in Brussels not on the high seas. Despite the navy’s presence, Iberian beards will on this occasion remain unsinged.
The row will doubtless re-open the debate about Gibraltar’s status as a British possession. Students of Metternich will enjoy parsing the Treaty of Utrecht, which ceded the Rock to Britain in 1713. But the legal position is clear and has been reinforced by two referendums on British sovereignty that London has pledged to respect.
None of this is to say that the Gibraltarians are blameless. Just as the Don Pacifico affair damaged British relations with other powers, rows over Gibraltar have the ability to disrupt not only relations with Spain but those with other Latin American countries. While sending in the navy, the UK might also remind the Gibraltarians of their responsibility to get on with the neighbours. The Rock’s authorities have not always been assiduous in dealing with unsavoury financial activities and smuggling. Mr Cameron likes to talk about rights coming with responsibilities. It is a lesson even crown colonies can usefully learn.
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