Spanish Boats In Royal Navy Stand-Off

Spanish Boats In Royal Navy Stand-Off

news.sky.com

Spanish fishermen have been involved in a stand-off with Royal Navy boats after making an illegal incursion into British waters around Gibraltar.

A flotilla of more than 30 fishing boats was "corralled" by UK military and police vessels after protesting near the spot where Gibraltar's government placed 70 concrete blocks in disputed waters next to the British territory.

The demonstration comes as the Royal Navy warship HMS Westminster is due to arrive in Gibraltar in a visit described by the Ministry of Defence as "long-planned".

Gibraltar says it has created the concrete artific

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www.bbc.co.uk

Spanish fishermen are staging a protest in the disputed waters off Gibraltar over an artificial reef placed there by the British territory's government.

The fishermen say the reef restricts their right to fish but Gibraltar says it will encourage sea-life to flourish.

Tom Burridge, aboard a Spanish vessel, says it is a "chaotic scene" in the disputed waters.


news.sky.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

The "reef" is just off the north western end of the British airport and entirely on the "British" side of the San Philipe Pier, as indicated in the graphic at eth bottom of this BBC article today.

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


Why are Civil Guardia (Spanish Police) boats entering into British territorial waters, isn't that an act of aggression ?
The Royal Navy intervened.

Well if the spanish try anything dumb they can join the rest of there fleet along with the frenches out the bottom of the ocean

Why do they need to fish in that particular little bit of ocean?

Why can't they just turn their boats round and fish the other million+ square miles of ocean?

And just think of all the fishing they've missed out on due to wasting time floating in the one little spot of ocean they're not allowed to fish in.

Weird.

reply to post by doobydoll


Lets be honest the Spanish government are trying to be clever didn't they team up with Argentina ? I smell a rat something tells me Spain what Gibraltar.

www.telegraph.co.uk... Islands.html

Argentina did it with the Falklands and Spain will do the same however this is not just about some little fishy problem the bigger fish are out to play on this one.

Maybe the blocks are to become barriers for submarines so they can't just slide along the bottom to avoid detection.
I don't see why Gibraltar would care about "sea life".

This is just an attempt by the right-wing governing party in Spain to deflect from internal economic and corruption problems, it is pretty much standard practice for them and Argentina, their new found friends.

First off, the reef is in British Waters. They have plenty of sea to fish of their own and this is entirely politically motivated.

Secondly, Gibraltar is ours, signed over to us in the 18th century "for ever, without any exception or impediment whatsoever". The Spanish claim the Treaty doesn't cover the Sea, but seeing as Territorial Waters weren't properly recognised by the international community until the 19th century, it is natural to assume that the Treaty provisions that handed over the land of Gibraltar included the 3 mile exclusion of territorial waters.

Thirdly, how can the Spanish, in any good conscience, get all uppity about this when they still control two enclaves in Morocco, just over the sea from Gibraltar!! Until they hand those back, they have no leg to stand on. They won't though, because in the same breath they demand Gibraltar back, they insist that Ceuta and Melilla are integral parts of Spain!

reply to post by deviant300


Hmmm... Now, lets see... TRAFALGAR!

Where were we? Oh yes!

There are some pretty damned fine reasons why Spain needs to wind its neck in. First of all, thier complaint about anti-trawler measures installed in BRITISH waters is laughable. They have no business fishing in the area in the first place, and the only things they have complained about are matters pertaining to the enforcement of various rules and regulations (most of them set down by the EU) which the British are merely trying to enforce. The Spanish immigration and import tax on the border between Gibraltar and Spain is a typically mercenary move on thier part, imposed as it was as a direct result of British lack of willingness to allow Spanish fishing fleets to continue to break the law.

There are some other great reasons for Spain to wind its neck in too. Twenty two of them. Thats the number of ships the Franco-Spanish fleet lost at Trafalgar, without a single British loss, despite the French and Spanish combined fleet out numbering the British ships by a considerable margin.

This in no small part stems from the last two British governments (Particularly the current one) idiotic policy toward our military budget and the perceived weakened state of the UK internationally by our old rivals, Gibraltar is a vital point of control for all international maritime trade into and out of the Mediterranean sea and because of this Spain reneged on there agreement to allow us permanent control of it in the treaty of Utrecht 1704 ( en.wikipedia.org... ) as they realised the economic importance of that site, without it we would have definitely lost the second world war, it has been sovereign British territory for 307 years.

Cameron need's to read the articles of war by Tsun Tsu or we need to re-establish the admiralty's position in the cabinet, the sooner we get some military serving or former officer's back into the house of common's the better.

In a recent referendum the population of Gibraltar whom are primarily of Spanish descent chose to stay British by an overwhelming majority, they had under our governance even despite the bombing by the Luftwaffe avoided the worst that Franco could do to his people.

Even though for the most part We Brit's do not hate the Spanish the opposite must be acknowledged to some degree and a lot of that anti British sentiment among the Spaniards can be traced back to the loss of the Armada and the later weakening of Spain as she lost both her best captains and her best soldiers in that little attempt to invade us, en.wikipedia.org... also the religious factor must be bourn in mind when looking at traditional hatreds, the bishops blessed that armada but god had other idea's apparently.

Has anybody noticed that financial problems are turning into military confrontations.

Friends are turning to foes. The old buried disputes are getting revived.

Petty nationalism is rearing its head again in Europe.

reply to post by GargIndia


The western banking system is collapsing, those idiots responsible for the collapsing now need WW3 to cover their lying, stealing ways - and to create a new avenue with which to continue their plunder of the world's wealth.

They should sink one of these boats, then the problem will be solved. The Spanish are well known for trespassing into foreign fishing grounds. Even the Irish navy chased a Spanish trawler out of national waters and riddled it with gunfire. It's the best way for the British government to show how serious they are about Gibraltar.