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Border chaos: Tobacco or PP?
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By David Eade
The queues returned to the border with La Línea last week. The word is it was a clamp down on tobacco smugglers.
Could be true but the week before last the British Prime Minister David Cameron slapped down Spain’s hopes of having “Brussels Agreement” style talks over the future of the Rock. Last week the British Ambassador to Spain, Giles Paxman, reiterated the same message in Madrid. So was it tobacco or the PP government in Madrid having had its cage rattled attempting to rattle its sabre back?
Cameron has been clearer than any British premier that talks on sovereignty will only happen with the approval of Gibraltar, that Gibraltar would be represented as a full negotiating member and if any deal was struck it would have to be approved by the people of Gibraltar in a referendum. Indeed the International Court of Justice takes the view that the right to self-determination resides with the people and not the government.
Not only were Gibraltarians and visitors to the Rock affected but of course the thousands of Spanish workers who were trying to get home. They voiced their anger to the media saying it wasn’t just cars and motorbikes that were affected but cyclists too as the Guardia Civil searched for illicit tobacco. If you believe in coincidences then it could be the border saw lengthy queues just as Britain said “no” purely by chance. Many of us, however, do not believe in such coincidences.
The president of one of the Spanish worker associations (Ascteg), Salvador Molina, noted that once again people were having to suffer lengthy queues and amongst those inconvenience were those who worked on the Rock and after a hard day they were unnecessarily delayed in getting home to their families. He labelled the Guardia Civil action as “inhumane”. Ascteg says if the Guardia Civil wants to crack down on tobacco smuggling all well and good but at least they could put additional officers on duty so there were no delays.
Of course crossing the border in to Spain there are two lanes: one red and one green. Vehicles in all the waiting lanes of traffic converge in to the green lane which in effect means there is only one lane as you cross. Hence if every car and two-wheel contraption is searched chaos ensues. Molina says it is “third world”. I believe I have used that phrase here about the border on more than one occasion.
Ascteg has normally made its protests to the local PSOE MP Salvador de la Encina: but as the socialists are no longer in power nobody in Madrid takes a blind bit of notice of what he says. There is an alternative: José Ignacio Landaluce – who is their PP MP and the mayor of Algeciras. No point in shouting at him though: he’d only beg for the queues to be made longer.
SOMETHING IN THE WATER?
Whilst I was in the UK my small, ginger, male kitten, The Zig, was taken to the vet to have his accoutrements removed. The receptionist looked at him then filled out his card: he had suddenly become a pit bull terrier named Tigger. Around the same time I was sitting in the security pen at Portcullis House, the MPs office block at Westminster. I shared a seating area with two other white males of around my age. The electronic door burst open and in rushed an eager, young, MP’s assistant who asked us in a loud voice: “Which of you is Naomi Campbell?” Simultaneously our jaws dropped open and we were too stunned to answer. At which point he rushed off in search of other white aged males answering to the same name. God help us!
15-03-12
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