Article 50 trigger 29th March

However the question is "should we go to war on Gibraltars behalf" as Howard suggested.

The last referendum was pretty decisive to say the least as was the first Minister speaking today on the Andrew Marr show I don't think it could be made any clearer what the people of Gibraltar think of even power sharing with Spain!!!

Anyone who has listened to radio, read a newspaper or watched tv in the last 40 years ( all of us) knows that Gibralter is rock solid( forgive the pun) with the UK.No doubt they voted to stay in the EU because being slap bang next to Spain and being a small place and needing to trade, it would have made things easier for them.But given a choice between being Spanish and being British there is no doubt how they would vote. Spain would look aggressive now if it started demanding anything.

If a nation threatens to take over a small country that belongs to another nation ww that is exactly what can happen(war) but this is more Spanish posturing being met with some British posturing right back if it's anything at all.
Britain will always protect it's own, as we saw in the Falklands.

You are preaching to the converted rose and nn. My question is - is it worth getting out the gun boats for?

Only Michael Fallon matters, not the other Michael.

So I take to be a no then- sensible person

A pacifist would have said no to getting out the gun boats to oppose Hitler.
Sensible people somewhere in between, but the question is hypothetical anyway.

If the UK is going to go to war with Spain over Gibraltar, I hope there's a referendum. Personally, I don't want any of my money going to defend an anachronism.

Of course Gibraltar wants to remain British. It's a 1950s theme park with red letter boxes and fish and chip shops, which doesn't pay taxes to the UK. It's a tax haven and offshore gambling HQ, which undermines the EU. Spain is welcome to it.

Fallon, Howard and Davis are talking nonsense. The UK has no realistic chance of hanging on to Gibraltar by traditional defence methods. The only reason that Gibraltar's been kept on the back burner is because Spain and the UK are/were members of the EU and there were political pressures to maintain the status quo.

If mainland Brits care so much about Gibraltar, they really should have thought about it before the referendum.

It's utterly ridiculous to suggest that either Spain or UK would go to war over Gibraltar, or indeed that the Gibraltarians woud ever want such a thing.

We have fish and chip shops and red letter boxes, are we also a theme park?
Spain has enough home grown problems on it's plate without any expansionist plans being plotted.

I doubt if it's posturing roses. Spain is dead serious.

I am not happy for one penny to be spent on defending Gibraltar. I suppose we could always send an aircraft carrier - without aircraft, it could always be converted into a temporary home for Gibraltarians .

Of course it's ridiculous Fitzy, so who's posturing now?

But what do they want, Fitzy? They can't stay in the EU and stay in the UK.

Errmmm...some people's minds belong in a theme park!

I presume you pay your taxes, roses, unlike Gibraltarians.

Then they will come out of the EU.Like they used to be before we went into it.

90% of them voted to stay in.
It's strange how both you and niggly know how Gibraltarians think.

Or they could decide they belong to Spain and stay in the EU.Not likely.

And it's strange durhamjen how you appear to know so little about Gibralter.Have you ever been there? I thought not.

Gibraltar was ceded to Britain in perpetuity in 1713 under the treaty of Utrecht. You can't just ignore that or perhaps you can! Hong Kong was handed back without any problems but then HK was a 99 year lease so no problem. If the incident (threat by Spain to ram) between an American nuclear sub and a Spanish ship, resulting in the sub having to be escorted by a British warship is accurate, then I think it will be Spain firing the first shot if push comes to shove like Argentina! goodness knows what our response to that would be!

Still, all this hypothetical stuff about Gib, gives some a happy little away day from the beastliness that they think is Brexit.

Like whitewave asked, who would we be taking on, Spain or the whole of the EU?
Just as hypothetical.
Have you been to Gibraltar, roses?

I've been - does that make me an expert then?

Presumably you didn't hear the first Minister of Gibraltar speaking this morning on the Andrew Mart show dj? He made their feelings where Spain was concerned quite clear, or perhaps you failed to understand that, I think you can safely say that he knows the feelings of his fellow countrymen !! As I have visited Gibraltar within the last five years their attitude to Spain's crystal clear and according to friends hasn't changed, if anything it's hardened.