Keir Starmer will cede full control of Gibraltar’s borders and hand the EU sweeping powers under a new deal for the future of ‘The Rock’.
Spain will have the power to block UK travellers from entering the British territory and reject residency permits under a new post-Brexit treaty with Brussels.
Eurosceptic MPs and veterans slammed the deal on Thursday night as yet another ‘humiliating surrender’ by Labour as they raised fears it will see British sovereignty eroded.
Under the deal, Spanish border guards, who have been accused of being overenthusiastic with crossing checks in the past, will be based in Gibraltar for the first time and will have the power to block British travellers if they deem them to pose a risk to security or international relations.
The treaty adds that all immigration checks will take place at Gibraltar’s airport – which is run by the Ministry of Defence and hosts an RAF base – and port rather than at the land border.
The treaty will also grant the EU new powers over the British territory’s tax system, putting an end to the current VAT-free regime.
Gibraltar will enter into a ‘bespoke’ customs union with Brussels that will see the ‘majority’ of goods entering the British territory ‘cleared’ by EU officials in Spain.
The draft treaty, which was published yesterday but still needs to be ratified by Parliament and signed, has been celebrated by Madrid and welcomed by the Gibraltar government.
Gibraltar’s land border with Spain (pictured, file photo) will become fluid, without passports checks, under the new terms
At Gibraltar Airport (pictured, file photo), Spanish border guards will be able to block British citizens from entering the territory, if they deem them a risk
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer (pictured on Thursday) has been accused of ceding sovereignty of another British territory
UK ministers have insisted that the agreement does not affect sovereignty and that nothing signed ‘shall constitute the basis for any assertion or denial of sovereignty’ over The Rock.
However, shadow foreign office minister Wendy Morton warned MPs that sovereignty is ‘not simply about words, it is about how arrangements operate in practice’.
And Reform UK last night branded the deal ‘yet another humiliating surrender of British territory’.
The 1,018-page treaty will, in effect, make Gibraltar part of the EU’s free-travel zone, although ministers yesterday insisted the British territory is ‘not joining Schengen’.
The draft treaty outlines arrangements for a ‘fluid border’ that will allow people and goods to travel freely across the land border with Spain, which will see the huge barbed wire fence separating the two come down.
The deal will mean no routine passport checks at the Spain-Gibraltar border for the 15,000 people who cross it every day.
But checks will apply to those arriving by air in a ‘dual’ border model similar to French police operating at St Pancras station.
Spanish guards would be able to ‘make arrests and take other coercive measures’, the treaty says.
Gibraltar, which was ceded by Spain to the British crown in 1713, will also have to align with EU single market rules and be under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.
