The difference of course being that Gibraltar used to be Spanish, while Ceuta and Melilla never have been parts of Morocco. Portugal has more claim to those two enclaves than Morocco ever did.

Ceuta and Melilla are part of Spain since the fifteenth century, same as Granada and way older than the Moroccan state.

I am telling that Gibraltar people should decide which country they want to belong to, same thing with Ceuta and Melilla.

From my quick search, it doesn't at all seem like the majority of the people living in Ceuta and Melilla wish to be part of Morocco.

I mean they said pretty clearly that they should respect the wishes of sovereignty for Gibraltar, so presumably they would also extend the same to Ceuta and Melilla.

I think in a very abstract sense I agree that exclaves like this are weird and it would be cleaner if they didn't happen (Gibraltar returned to Spain, Ceuta and Melilla returned to Morocco), but that's thinking of this as a systems design problem rather than one that cares about people. I recognise that this is not an empathetic view, and my own opinion is worthless and I hold onto it very weakly.

My definition of colonialism generally involves people being subjugated and being treated as less and involuntarily part of an empire. People in Gibraltar are British citizens with full rights by definition.

Land borders that one doesn't like doesn't equate to colonialism. It's just a land border that you don't like. The people of Gibraltar voted almost 100% to be British on more than one occasion. Trying to make them not British is the definition of colonialism

Each of these countries, enclaves, territories, settlements, borders have massive amounts of history that shape why they are the way they are, and attempting to say "this rule should apply equally to all of them" shows a huge misunderstanding of why they are unique.

"Colonialism" is a weird Western guilt fetish that some others successfully milk.

After 10 generations, the people are every bit as local as the previous population was. 300 years is such an abyss of time that most of us would fail to name a single of our ancestors by name.

Kladsko was a Czech city from approx. 1000 to 1742. The old town still looks a bit like very small Prague [0]. Was lost in a war (to the Prussians no less), it is gone, not our anymore. Tough luck. Others live there now, it is theirs.

[0] https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kladsko_(město)#/media/Soubor:...

I mean, do you think the east prussia should be returned to Germany? Should West Virginia be retrieved to Virginia?

I was born in a country that has islands and I live in a different country that consists exclusively of islands. The islands spread out thousands of miles in various directions. Land being far apart is just a reality of how countries work.

The distance from London to Gibraltar is closer than the distance from London to Bermuda, but nobody finds that weird. France has French Polynesia on the opposite side of the world. Russia has Kaliningrad. Norway has Svalbard. South Africa has another country, Lesotho, right in the middle of it. India wraps around Bangladesh like a tentacle. Azerbaijan has a random piece of land and makes a sandwich out of Armenia. Spain has islands directly west of Morocco. France has land on South America.

The whole world has freaky borders. The only clean borders are places like Wyoming and Colorado.

There are many, MANY islands scattered around Earth's oceans. Not all of them have the resources to be self-sufficient, so any inhabitants have to import goods from somewhere. There are two options: either each island is its own country, or some islands belong to some other country. Given how easy it is to navigate to most islands (some of them are in harder-to-navigate straits), it doesn't make much practical difference whether the owning country is close or far away.

So no, as a general rule I can't agree. I can certainly agree that there are some rather silly cases, but it's just not practical for all islands to be self-governing, so I can't agree with the general rule you propose.

It's unlikely you'll try to debate anything. You're interested in agitation alone.

Because the people who live there overwhelmingly (98%–99%) vote in favour of remaining British.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Gibraltar_sovereignty_ref...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Gibraltar_sovereignty_ref...

Gibraltar have had two referendums on whether they want to be a part of Spain or the UK, and they have voted with an absolutely insane majority to choose to be part of the UK in both cases. This isn't like Brexit, or Scotland's IndyRef - there was a 96% turnout and a 99% vote in favour of the UK in 1967, and an 88% turnout with a 99% vote in favour again in 2002.

Why does Britain have any say in the people who live in, say, Liverpool? Because that's historically been British territory. So what's the difference? Only real difference I can see is length of history (a few hundred years vs. nearly a thousand years). But as far as I'm concerned, a few hundred years vs. nearly a thousand years doesn't make much difference. I'd argue that any territory that has belonged to country X for longer than all of its inhabitants have been alive has a pretty fair claim to be historical territory of country X, and should continue being part of country X unless there's a very good reason otherwise. (Such as a valid treaty, a clear referendum, and so on).

It gets all complicated and messy when war is involved, of course. I'm talking about peaceful transfers of ownership here.

It has always been thus. If you don't like the outcome of a war of conquest, you'll most likely have to start another war of conquest to try and get a different outcome.

After 500 days? No

After 500 years? Yes

Somewhere between is reasonable to debate, but many people won't even agree on the principal of self determination, at least not consistently. Personally I wouldn't put the threshold longer than a human lifetime

Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain. Wales was more mixed.

Northern Ireland got the best deal of the three. Thanks to the Good Friday Agreement, people there can get Irish (and therefore EU) passports.

This is a perennial issue in Scottish politics, but Scotland, unlike Northern Ireland, and maybe Kent, does not have a land border with the EU.

My personal hope was that the UK would remain in the EU, but both the EU and UK would take a look at themselves. Instead both are heading more and more towards censorship and heavy control of their citizens.

What a brilliantly depressing graphic

Thanks for the correction, edited the comment

Yep, it’s always justified by the fact that Morocco never existed and therefore has no claim.

But applying this logic universally would change the world map, not to mention that this justification ignores the fact that the concept of a nation state is relatively new as a norm.

Regardless, I and many others will continue to ridicule Spain’s paradoxical position on Gibraltar. Hopefully a just resolution is realized for all parties at some point in the future.

“But Morocco didn’t exist!” - addressed in another reply, see sibling.

The UN argument boils down to Spain lobbying the UN early on (post-WW2) at a time when Morocco and other North African and West Asian states either did not exist yet or did not have the ability to represent themselves well at the UN.

I do not disagree, where does it stop though. We would have to go back to when Homo sapiens and Neanderthals killed each other.

Well, that's not true, is it?

I say this as somebody who is paternally British and maternally Irish. My great-grandfather was in the Royal Irish constabulary, but his eldest daughter (my great Aunt), married a leader of the IRA. Most of my Irish great uncles came to England from Ireland and enlisted in the British Army and the RAF in WW2 while Ireland remained neutral. After the War, some of them returned to Ireland, some of them stayed in England.

The real picture of life on the ground is complicated, and I'm going to assume you are not living amongst it, by your use of "their" when talking about Ireland.

At the point of Irish independence it was decided that those parts of Ireland who majority wanted to be part of the Irish republic should form a republic, and those that didn't (the six counties of Northern Ireland), would remain part of the United Kingdom. And so it is today.

The 100+ years since have held multiple chapters in the story, including murders on both sides, terrorism in the UK (including an attempt on a sitting Prime Minister's life), oppression of republicans in Northern Ireland, and a hard-fought and wrung out peace agreement.

The current First Minister of Northern Ireland is the leader of Sinn Fein, a formerly proscribed (read: banned), party that was considered the "political arm of the Provisional IRA" (they are the terrorists who bombed PM Margaret Thatcher).

The way we got to that state was the Good Friday agreement in 1998. That allows people in Northern Ireland to express both their Britishness and their Irishness (yes, they can have both! In the same person!), without fear of reprisal or judgement, either culturally or officially. People explore their cultures as they see fit. They vote for people as they see fit, even if London doesn't particularly like the leaders they vote for. They live. And they have a say in how things should be.

There is no oppression of the language. Gaelic is slowly flourishing again in the Republic, and those who wish to use it in Northern Ireland can do so. There's no mandate for dual language road signage in Northern Ireland as there is in Wales, but there's no real ask for it either: at some point it might happen, in the same way the Welsh Language Act came about in 1993 (another sign of UK government encouraging self-determination - the Welsh Assembly).

Successive recent governments of the Republic of Ireland for their part are happy with this situation: the price of keeping the peace if the six counties were handed over to the Republic today would likely bankrupt the Irish treasury (and it would have been worse during The Troubles): it would break the Good Friday agreement, there would be a rise of terrorism and so on. They know they'd have to ask for external assistance, and then we're just back to the worst of The Troubles.

The vast majority accept the right to self determination is the way, now, and for the future. Over time, it's expected the appetite within Northern Ireland to become part of the Republic will grow within the population itself. This is because of demographic change: the unionist population is slowly becoming a minority (funny how when a Catholic demographic of Republicans are told not to use birth control their birthrate is higher than the Protestant population who do use birth control - I am here today thanks to this marvellous papal determination :) ).

One day, there will be a vote. One day, change will happen.

But it won't be because of something being imposed. Or an imposition being removed.

I suggest you do a little more research, and look into what's actually going on with the UK here. The history of it - as with the history of most things - is rich, complex, sad, hopeful, and lived. It's not a slogan. It's not a talk given by a politician at a fund raising event. It's not the quip given by a guy you hear talking about it in a bar or at a dinner table who never set foot in any of the countries he's talking about. Just be a bit more curious.

Maybe tone down the hatred?

I'm pretty sure that if the Argentinians hasn't invaded they would probably have the Falklands by now. As it is it I would think that it would be political suicide for any UK government to even contemplate any kind of deal.

> Fisheries and oil, have changed the view

No. The reason was not economic, the reason was that the government polled the people living there and found that support for remaining British is ~100%.

Oil was found later, the fisheries were never worth maintaining the island for.