Then along came the French in the form of MP Fabien Roussel, having a go at Gibraltar by creating mischief, like a child with his junior ipad, googling to check. So he said what a tax haven was, after he had typed in “Gibraltar tax Haven”. I bet both he and his Spanish compatriots are laughing themselves stupid. They may continue to use us as the brunt of their jokes, but it’s not us who are getting a rough press; with front page titles such as; “The End of Spain” on the cover of magazines.

For it has not escaped the media out there; something which echoes comments of mine made of late; how many in Spain are delighted with what’s happening in Cataluña, some of whom were seen applauding the violent efforts of the police and civil guards preventing their Independence referendum.

SPANISH DECLINE

The power house that was Cataluña, has been stripped of so many business assets that the next time the PP looks into their coffers, they are going to find a gaping hole in their finances; the veritable honey pot that said country filled year in and year out, except for now of course!

Gone is an important part of its culture with the PP having pilfered a mediaeval treasure from its museum of Lleida; replacing stolen art they call it; artifacts which the Catalan Government had bought and paid for back in 1980 from the monastery nuns. But hey ho, the nuns not being priests, and therefore not backed or protected by the Church, have been made to look like pilferers who were selling off their goods illegally.

They can’t rob the Catalans of their language as Franco did in his day because that would be too obvious as far as their allegiances go; so now they have taken to ransacking their museums. It all smells rancid because it brings back images of old; of Franco’s days when Spain was a police state. The judge in charge of the case of two of the most important candidates in the running decided not to allow them to leave jail; in the interest of keeping the peace. That is why it makes no sense to have brought in 3,500 guards to oversee the proceedings. Worse still, these two heavyweight candidates were not allowed to communicate with their respective parties or the media, leaving the path free for “Ciudadanos” to win the day. Franco’s stamp on proceedings could not be any clearer.

HISTORY REPEATS

In the manner that Companys was accused of military rebellion, tried and given a thirty year sentence, it bears identical signs for Carles Piugdemont; except in view of how eventually Companys was tortured, kept in solitary confinement and sentenced to death, when Puigdemont witnessed the violent attacks of the police under the PP government incurring in the type of force which brings back memories of the military coup of 1936; the man rightly did not want to test the waters so to speak and decided to stay in Brussels.

One should recall that back then, seeing the carnage that had just been inflicted on Guernica, when someone asked the question of whether that had really been necessary, a senior officer under Franco’s command commented, that the same thing had to be done with the entire Basque country and all of Catalonia. At the end of my play of 2013 I wrote some lines for the leading female character who then said “I cannot forget the very disturbing sight on their National TV (Spain) of Spanish fighter planes flying over the Basque territory as they celebrated their election results. If they can turn this ugly against their own, is it not a disturbing factor in our sights?”

CATALONIAN DEMONISATION

The same calling of a boycott by Spain of trade goods produced in Cataluña, with apps indentifying the Catalan products for people to avoid, like the shunning of wines and food products, would not work with us as we are the ones primarily buying their Spanish products. But maybe we could buy locally for a while, for we are not going to ruin our traders, like they want to do with those they call their own. We could even try and create extra business with Africa as we did in the days of our “encarcelamiento”.

INSTIGATING CHANGE

In June the UK government said there could be no role for the European Court of Justice once it left the EU. This means that whatever protection may have been afforded us will no longer be in place. So we should get our skates on and try and bring about some major changes in our midst. Well-meaning Nicolas Gibert-Morin, on his visit in March this year, said that he believed we would continue to need to have links with the EU. Then again if changes we require and are asking for are put into place by the UK during this transition period, then maybe none of that will matter. We should be able to take heart from many good intentions afforded to us by those who lead in the UK and, in the supposed words of her Majesty our Queen, when she said at the time of Prince Charles and Lady Diana’s visit and in the face of the Spanish chagrin, “It’s my yacht, it’s my son and my Rock.”

02-01-18 PANORAMAdailyGIBRALTAR