Between a Rock and a hard place

Mrs May has said that Gibraltar will not be part of the negotiations but somehow forgot to mention that in her letter to Mr Tusk triggering Article 50. He didn't forget, and in his reply clearly stated that Spain would have a veto over discussions about Gibraltar's future.

Things have not been helped by the myopic jingoism of Lord Howard, stating that if the Spanish gave any trouble then Mrs May would deal with them in the same way that Mrs Thatcher dealt with the Argentinians over the Falklands.

This is a serious issue, and such puerile flag-waving only four days after the trigger was pulled (and before negotiations have even started) is also a serious concern. While we were in the EU club this issue was discussed in a civilised manner, though Spanish vessels have repeatedly entered Gibraltar's territorial waters illegally. The most recent incursion was dealt with in the same way that the previous ones were - irate phone calls.

Once we have resigned from the club then things become a bit more unstable. Disregarding the bluster of such as Lord Howard, it is still quite possible that in the future shots might be fired.

If that seems unlikely then it is worth reading about the Cod Wars between the UK and Iceland in the 1970's. Vessels were fired upon, boarded, and even captured. The dispute was about territory again - who could fish where. And there is an important lesson in this: we lost, despite the overwhelming superiority of our navy.

We lost because winning nowadays is rarely about direct military might, it is about alliances. In this case Iceland threatened to withdraw from NATO if we didn't cry uncle.

Another case to consider is what happened the last time things became strained over Gibraltar. In 2013 Spain imposed very strict border controls, causing a lot of problems for Gibraltarians. We asked the European Commission to arbitrate, and threatened to go to the European Court of Justice.

Clearly in two years' time neither of these will be an option. We can only call in people committed to settling such things amicably if we will abide by the decision - i.e. give up sovereignty. So the next dispute will be settled using political force with a dressing of armed force ("to show we mean business"). We may well lose again, as Spain has the EU and we will have no-one.