Brexit is going to be a godsend for anyone who wants to be cut off from the world – just ask Gibraltar

I loved my visit to Gibraltar. It’s so beautifully, innocently British. In the sweltering heat by the Mediterranean the pubs have boards outside saying “BRITISH fish and chips”, and a chocolate shop had a sign saying “BRITISH chocolate”, because what do foreigners from Switzerland and Belgium know about chocolate? They’ve probably never seen an Aero. I expected the chemist to have a sign saying “We sell BRITISH Anusol – you don’t want nothing Spanish going up there”.

But now they’re in a mess because they have to leave the EU, as they’re part of Britain. So a country 10 feet long that borders thousands of miles of Europe will be cut off entirely from everything they’re attached to, like if you lived in Bournemouth but your kitchen was in Argentina.

This is why they voted by 97 per cent to remain in the EU referendum, as leaving the EU threatens their position. This means the people of a country that likes to be more British than the British has said to the British: “No, don’t be that British – or we might end up not being British.”

British politicians try and sound hard when talking about Gibraltar, so Michael Howard a few month back that the Spanish should “remember the Falklands, when another Spanish-speaking leader threatened a British territory”, and see what happened to them.

That calmed things down, as threats of all-out invasion always do, but Theresa May will probably try and trump him, saying, “Spain should also remember what happened to the people in that house in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. They probably said something about Gibraltar, and that’s what annoyed the people with the saws – well, that will be Spain if they’re not careful.”

The Spanish government and the EU have said that, apart from threats, the British haven’t submitted any proposals for what should happen to Gibraltar when it leaves the EU. To be fair to the Prime Minister, she did make one statement, saying she’d “fight for a deal that works for Gibraltar and the United Kingdom”.

That clears things up a bit, as many people believed she was going to fight for a deal on Gibraltar that works for Alaska and a scrap metal yard in Kuala Lumpur.

But apart from that they’ve not suggested anything, which could leave Gibraltar outside the single market with no agreement on anything even though tens of thousands of Spanish cross the border every day to work there, and every tiny thing involves going across the border.

This is a refreshingly down-to-earth attitude from the Government, similar to the one I adopt whenever I have to do something tricky involving council tax or a parking fine, which is to put all the forms in the bin and hope everyone forgets about it.

Most EU meetings on Brexit must stop when David Davis says, “Oh sorry, I haven’t got that letter, I used it to wipe up the cat sick.”

So the EU are taking the Spanish side, which was always likely as Spain are still in the EU, so Gibraltar will be out of the single market and have to renegotiate everything with the country that surrounds them.

If you were a strategist, you might notice this could be more difficult for Gibraltar than for Spain. Because it’s hard for Gibraltar to do anything without involving Spain. If you want to make a cup of British tea, the kettle and the tea bags will probably be on the other side of the room which is across the border.

But this seems to be the strategy with every aspect of Brexit. The answer to any specific question is: “They can shut their face, we’re BRITAIN.”

If there’s an argument about pickled onions, the EU proposes a series of renegotiated arrangements based on figures drawn up by the EU pickled onion office, derived from a projected pickled onion consumption module assessed by the Strasbourg Office for Pickling and Retaining Requisite Crunchness. And we respond by going: “Bollocks. WE eat what we like. Napoleon thought he could tell us about pickled onions and look what happened to him.”

The Spanish government also objected to the statement from David Davis that “other countries want to get on and talk with us about trade; countries like Denmark and Holland and Spain”. A Spanish minister said this wasn’t true, and that “the British Government is told ‘We’ll see what we can do’ and they take that as agreement.”

This is the pattern: the Government is told, “No, we won’t buy any of your cucumbers”, so they report that as, “It’s all fine, they’re giving us Paris.”

But this is all reasonable. Because the referendum wasn’t necessarily about the EU; it was about whether we should be a country that tries to get on with everyone else and welcome people, or see all foreigners as shady thieves. So we took a decision and now it’s only fair we abide by the result, and tell everyone foreign to shut their face.

Gibraltar itself should be respected, as it’s a welcoming and fascinating place, which is not only British but a British from the 1970s that doesn’t exist anymore. It’s full of red phone boxes that have gone in real Britain, and the big English breakfasts they sell you don’t get so much in England now. Lots of the “English” pubs have shut down in actual Britain, and they’re going to get such a shock when they find out what happened to Rolf Harris.

But this is the Britain we were sold by Brexit, so the only democratic agreement is to hand the whole of Britain to Gibraltar, so we can be run by them, and that should be fair to everyone.