Well, that didn’t take very long did it?
Just days after British Prime Minister Theresa May triggered Article 50 and began divorce proceedings from the European Union, and already there is talk of war.
In the past Mrs May has been adamant that she does not want to present Brexit as a divorce. It is, she feels, a scenario too filled with recrimination and bitterness.
But war is filled with rather more recrimination and bitterness, and so it is not hard to imagine the British Prime Minister was less than delighted with the suggestion by a former Conservative Party leader that Mrs May would be happy to fight for Gibraltar.
A British Overseas Territory of just over 2 square miles on the Southern tip of Spain, Gibraltar has become the first significant dispute since the process of Brexit officially began on 29 March.
In a draft position on exit negotiations between the UK and EU, the European Union proposed offering Spain a veto over Gibraltar’s future trade relations with the bloc.
Offering Spain sway over the after of Gibraltar’s trade was not welcomed in the UK where Michael Howard, former Tory Party leader, said he believed Mrs May would be as steadfast on the issue of the Rock of Gibraltar as Mrs Thatcher had been on the Falklands.
Talk of war has ramped up ridiculously quickly, to the point where it could be thought that April Fools Day has now extended to April Fools Week.
Some British newspapers discussed a weakened Royal Navy, but assured concerned readers the Navy still had the power to ‘cripple’ Spain. Others suggested using a threat to expel all Spaniards from the UK (although radio silence was maintained on the thousands of British people living in Spain).
All in all, not the most calm approach in the early days of what will be a long and complex negotiation.
Mrs May’s dislike of the divorce euphemism will not have been helped either by Gibraltar’s Chief Minister Fabian Picardo accusing the EU of behaving like a cuckolded husband taking it out on the children.
The row does go to show though that the negations which lie ahead are ripe for disputes. Some will be anticipated, but some will not.
Winston Churchill once proclaimed on a visit to the US that ‘to jaw jaw is better than to war, war’. There will be plenty of jaw, jaw in the months ahead. Less talk of war, war will probably help those talks considerably.
