Fabian Picardo

"The attitude of Spain's foreign ministry appears to have ignored the failures of the past and is working hard to secure even greater failures for the future."

Fabian Picardo (born 18 February 1972) is a Gibraltarian politician and barrister. In April 2011 he was elected as leader of the Gibraltar Socialist Labour Party and in December 2011 he became Chief Minister of Gibraltar after his party won the 2011 Gibraltarian general election.

Sourced

2012

• "One of the top Spanish diplomats of recent generations, Snr Inocencio Arias – who was until ten years ago Spain's Permanent Representative at the UN - has recently recognised, in a memoir, that all of Spain's strategies for the recovery of Gibraltar have failed. We did not need to be told that, nor do we want any strategy to succeed, but he is right to have started a debate in Spain which in effect is telling Spanish diplomacy what we have been saying for generations: Wake up and smell the coffee: Gibraltar will never be Spanish! Yet in recent months, the attitude of Spain's foreign ministry appears to have ignored the failures of the past and is working hard to secure even greater failures for the future."
  • Address to the Special Committee on Decolonisation in New York

• "This is the Rock of the Gibraltarians. This is our land. This is our home. This is our Rock. Only we can decide its future. And we are not here to ask anyone for the right to self determination. We are here to assert that we have the right to self determination. And only we can decide the destiny of this Rock and no 300-year old treaty and no threats will ever intimidate us. So in case anybody needs reminding, we will never concede one grain of sand, one breath of our air, or one drop of our waters. Not one drop!"
  • Speech to crowds in Casemates Square on Gibraltar National Day 2012.

• "The position of the United Kingdom is as usual so nuanced that it's difficult to see where they are on the spectrum, but look, that's what Britain's like and we all love being British."
  • Describing the UK government's position on the UN Decolonisation Committee, saying

2013

• "What we have seen this weekend is sabre-rattling of the sort that we haven't seen for some time. The things that Mr García-Margallo has said are more reminiscent of the type of statement you'd hear from North Korea than from an EU partner."
  • On the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation's comments about closing its airspace to flights heading to Gibraltar.

• "Hell will freeze over before any other flags fly in Gibraltar that are not our flags. Red, white and blue. Red, white and proud. Red, white and free!"
  • Speech to crowds in Casemates Square on Gibraltar National Day 2013.

External links

• Gibraltar profile. Chief minister: Fabian Picardo at BBC News.