What Spain’s Diamond Jubilee snub says about Gibraltar

This month, Queen Sofia of Spain declined an invitation to lunch at Windsor Castle to mark the Diamond Jubilee amid renewed tensions over the British territory of Gibraltar.

The lunch was the largest gathering of royals from around the world in over 50 years, with 24 kings and queens in attendance.

The snub came days before a fishing rights dispute off the coast, where Spanish fishing boats, under protection from police, were forced to leave the area only after a Royal Navy vessel intervened.

The Gibraltar government says fishing with large nets there is illegal because of an environmental law but Spain, who claim sovereignty over the peninsula, said Madrid would continue to dispatch police boats to protect Spanish fishermen in the area.

These are troubling times for Anglo-Spanish relations. The simmering row flared up last week when Spain's foreign ministry issued a formal complaint to Britain's ambassador over the planned visit of the Earl and Countess of Wessex to Gibraltar – another celebration of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Apparently the ruling party felt "disgust and upset" at this gesture of British solidarity.

It seems that the Jubilee is causing a certain amount of fuss on the Iberian peninsula, and nowhere more so than Gibraltar itself, where the British subjects are looking forward to the bank holiday weekend with zeal.

So military interventions aside, is the Spanish Crown justified in their continuing PR battle with the Windsors - especially when Gibraltarians have voted time and again to remain British?

Like our own royal family, the Spanish royals enjoy healthy approval ratings - locked at around 75%.

However they are also not immune to the odd scandal. King Juan Carlos was forced to apologise only a couple of weeks ago for going elephant-hunting in Botswana as his country endures a period of intense austerity, recession and unemployment.

And this brings to light our own royal family’s remarkable performance over the past decade.

The turbulent 1990s saw affairs, divorces, toe-sucking and the movie-making controversy surrounding the Queen’s removed reaction to Princess Diana’s death. Despite this, research by Ipsos Mori found that during this period, support for the monarchy still polled at an impressive 74 per cent, since then, returning to its average of around 80%.

A big part of this approval for both monarchies is their seeming tough line on territory. When Prince William visits the Falklands, not only does it provide the denizens with on-the-spot access to a prestigious public figure, but it also acts as a subtle reminder of the UK’s imperial past at a time when the term ‘colonialism’ is deemed toxic.

But maybe the ongoing battle for Gibraltar has little to do with national patriotism or belief in the Commonwealth.

The territory has more registered companies than inhabitants, and while it is sometimes mocked as a kind of Torquay-by-Andalucía, its efforts to establish itself as anything other than a tax haven have been hampered by Spain, who blockaded the Rock until 1985, and didn’t recognise its dialing code until a year later.

So it is little wonder Gibraltarians find great comfort in British nationalism. Queen Sofia’s snub is a petty machination of the continuing challenge of British retention. And as the UK becomes more ethnically and culturally diverse, we cling to the Monarchy - and the relics of its Empire.

Gibraltar is a charming but slightly pointless nod to the past; the quintessential Little Britain, dwelling off the coast of a large, powerful and often unpredictable neighbour. It is an olive branch of Britishness. Like the Monarchy, we will continue to hold on to it.