http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3533676.stm

Maybe you should have faired better in the Spanish Succession? :P

A little strange that Spain's argument for their rightful sovereignity rests upon proximity and historical ownership prior to 1704, yet Spain is also trying to claim an island 400 yards from Morocco that Morocco claims under the same reasoning Spain applies to Gibraltar.

Bottom line is it's all about land/pride and everyone bends the argument to their benefit.

Wow. Interesting history.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1276191,00.html

Also, the issue of North Africa has no relevance to Gibraltar and they are not comparable.

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArticle.aspx?refid=761575057&pn=5

"About 1500 BC a North African people called Iberians (http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761568486/Iberians.html) began to move northward, across the Strait of Gibraltar. By 1000 BC the Iberians were well established on the peninsula. The Iberians developed a system of writing and built many towns. Another ancient people, the Basques (http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761574205/Basques.html), inhabited the western Pyrenees and probably predated the arrival of the Iberians. About 700 BC a people known as Celts (http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761563428/Celts.html) migrated from France into northern Spain and imposed their Indo-European language and culture on indigenous peoples. Iberians and Celts met in central Spain and gradually merged into a people called the Celtiberians. These Celtiberians first dominated the central plateau and the west, and then occupied the peninsula’s eastern coast."

"As Carthage’s influence in Mediterranean trade grew, a rivalry developed between Carthage and Rome, another rising Mediterranean power. In the First Punic War (264-241 BC) Rome defeated Carthage and forced it to surrender Carthaginian possessions in Sicily (http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761564985/Sicily.html) and to pay a large indemnity (see Punic Wars (http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761562033/Punic_Wars.html)). After this costly defeat, Carthage looked to the Iberian Peninsula to rebuild its trading empire. The Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca (http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761561789/Hamilcar_Barca.html) conquered southern and eastern Spain from 237 to 228 BC and founded a colony at Barcelona (http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761567148/Barcelona.html). In 219 BC Barca’s son, the Carthaginian general Hannibal (http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761574573/Hannibal_%28general%29.html), seized the Greek colony of Saguntum, violating an agreement with Rome regarding the limits of Carthage’s expansion on the Iberian Peninsula. This precipitated the Second Punic War (218-201 BC), during which Hannibal used Spain as the base for an invasion of modern Italy (http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761555207/Italy.html). By 206 BC the Romans had forced Carthage out of Spain."

To conclude, Spanish North Africa is not the remain of a colonial past, they are an integral part of Spain, and Hispanic peoples inhabited the region for milennia before Arabs invaded it. They are the invaders, not us.

Heh, I think the Moroccans would take issue with being called part of Spain. Spain as a sovereign nation did not exist all those years ago. The area was a collection of tribes who happened to share some ethnic origins (Iberian), then became a province of the Carthaginians , then the Romans. "Spain" as it's own nation arose much later after the Romans crumbled and includes other ethnicities besides Iberians as noted in your post. Morocco too still has Iberian ancestry in it's blood.

If you try and base ownership on tribal ethnic grounds as it appears you are arguing, every nation with celtic blood in it's history could claim ownership of every other. Ireland could claim France who could claim England who could claim Ireland, etc. That is not how political boundaries are chosen. Mexico has people with Iberian blood too, but you don't see them trying to claim Spain or Morocco as their territory because *some* of their ancestors came from there.

The bottom line is this...Spain wants the UK to return Gibraltar because it reminds them daily they lost a war and land to Britain. They use arguments that it is closer to Spain and it once belonged to Spain. Fine. But then don't turn around and threaten a smaller Morocco over an island that is far closer to them and was taken from the local population (who were moorish at the time) by Spain during their colonial period.

Allow me to tear this apart.

'We must start with the history bit.'

- Indeed, let's.

'Anxious for some kind of victory, Rooke turned his attentions to the ruined fort of Gibraltar, garrisoned by only 150 men. This, at least, was within his powers. A landing force seized the rocky, desolate prize in the name of Charles III, allied candidate for the throne of Spain.'

- To begin with, Rooke didn't "turn" his attention to Gibraltar in some hap-hazard attempt to walk away with a prize, Gibraltar was part of the Med agenda to sieze the most important parts of the sea to break Franco-Spanish power in the area. There could have been no finer outcome than actually siezing the straits that command the door-way to the Med, and above all, one that sits right upon Spain's steps. Obtaining Gibraltar ranks among one of those most rare and foresighted strategy moves, right up there with Malta. These "ruined" and "desolate" places provided us with bases that enabled us to go on and dominate the Med for some 300 years. Not to mention flotilla's could now *remain" in the Med, instead of having to sail back to Britain to regenerate. The importance of such is overwhelming (if you're a little slow, imagine D-day for America without the South of England as a base).
Not only that, but Gibraltar was held, in the face of heavy Franco-Spanish counter-attack, for 2 thick and straight years (sometime before Peterborough then captured Barcelona...).
Along with Minorca - and the obviously positive conclusion of the war - Gibraltar was the best thing to come out of the Spanish Succession for us, even better than the Caribbean prizes, with all their sugary goodness.

'All this magnificent heritage is being extravagantly celebrated on the Rock this week,'

- Great sarcasm. Gibraltar's legacy is anything but dull, or worthless. It boasted British fleets for 300 years, 300 years in which we spent embroidled in continental conflicts that meant keeping the balance of power, of which France, Spain, and later Italy and Germany saught to dispell.

'To conclude, Spanish North Africa is not the remain of a colonial past, they are an integral part of Spain, and Hispanic peoples inhabited the region for milennia before Arabs invaded it. They are the invaders, not us.'

- That is quite possibly the most appaulingly pathetic reasoning I have ever seen.
How long do a people have to settle a land for it to be "theirs", and able to claim it hunderds or a thousand years later?
The Celt-iberians were heavily displaces by the Vandals and, most particular, the Visigoths during the Barbarian Invasion. The Visigoth Kingdom lasted for barely 200 years before the Caliphate's armies covered the penninsula.
Your ancient logic is flawed simply because of the history of modern European countries is the history of invasion or migration.
The Romans took Spain from the Carthaginians, the Visigoths and Vandals from the Romans, the Arabs from the Visigoths, the Visigoths from the Arabs...See my point? Islamic armies held parts of Spain for longer than the Visigoths ever did. Southern Spain (Key to Granada, anyone?) was under Islamic rule until the 15th century, for godsake.
It's like saying we should give Cornwall back to the Welsh, or something similarly insane.

The Spanish are entitled to their African possessions, as history dictates. As they are entitled to their Cordobian possession, which they won through war.
Gibraltar was given to us by Spain upon defeat, as Lorraine was to France after the First World War.
Three years of a Franco-Spanish siege could not remove us from Gibraltar. Back then, the soldiers did not wish to give it up. But today, democratically, the citizens of Gibraltar do not wish to give up.

You seem to have enjoyably neglected to mention that not only have we given the decision utterly over to the people of Gibraltar, but we even offered to go half-and-half with the Spanish.
We don't have much left of our empire (having allowed almost all of it to achieve full, co-operated independence) but to those parts we still own, and wish to remain a part of Britain, will. It's something we owed to the residence of Hong Kong, and I'm glad to see that this time, we're sticking to our guns (so to speak).