Former British MP suggests raising Catalonia pro-independence aspirations at the UN

London (CNA).- Former British Minister for Labour, Lord Norman Tebbit, suggested “raising Catalonia’s desire for independence at the United Nations”in an article published this Sunday in the ‘Daily Telegraph’. “Were I in No 10 I think I would let it be known in Madrid that I was thinking of inviting leaders of the Catalan independence movement to London, or even to raising their desire for independence at the United Nations”, he said and noted that “Catalans are different from the Spanish”since they are “an outward-looking Atlanticist people who were trading with Cornwall and Wales a thousand years ago”. Under the title ‘Spain's vanity has led politicians to play with fire and they must learn its dangers’, Lord Tebbit recalled that Gibraltar “is not a colony”but “a British Overseas Territory”and noted that “96% of its 30,000 citizens voted recently in favor of staying that way”. Finally, he criticized Spain’s “vanity over a treaty battle lost 300 years ago”.

“The Spanish government has to realize it is playing with fire,” noted Lord Tebbit, referring to Spain’s attitude regarding Gibraltar. According to him, the aim of the EU is to use the rock “as a bargaining chip in Brexit negotiations”and suggested that the Brexit arrangements "should not apply to Gibraltar without an agreement between the kingdom of Spain and the UK". Spain, he said in the article, “lobbied for the inclusion of Gibraltar within the EU council's statement”. Moreover, he criticizes Spain’s “vanity over a treaty battle lost 300 years ago”.

“Were I in No 10 I think I would let it be known in Madrid that I was thinking of inviting leaders of the Catalan independence movement to London, or even to raising their desire for independence at the United Nations,” he said. “The Catalans are different from the Spanish. They are an outward-looking Atlanticist people who were trading with Cornwall and Wales a thousand years ago,” he added.