EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

terroristolia?

Why do we care about Gibraltar so much? Is there some military importance in having a presence in the Med?

You get great deals on Duty Free as well as a convenient place for ageing military personnel to get posted to recuperate their joi de vivre

the uk should start pushing for catalonian independence during the brexit negotiations

Who would give a flying fuck what the UK has to say in that regard? It's like getting yourself kicked out of the club by insulting the staff then asking the barmaid to whip you up a quick mojito before you get your coat.

I can't believe I forgot about the Monkeys. Going to war over it makes sense now.

Having naval control of the Straits of Gibraltar means you can decide who can and cannot enter. Two hundred years ago it was important for the British Empire, now, not so much.

Why do we care about Gibraltar so much? Is there some military importance in having a presence in the Med?

oil and gas

Where? In Gibraltar itself?

Sod Gibraltar. We should annex Malta. Again.

Like Scotland who May has been busy pissing off? ;)

isn't it more about the hundreds of thousands of UK businesses registered in Gibraltar as a way of bypassing UK/EU tax laws in a manner of fucking over our dear European neighbours as only the UK does quite so well?

Shell did a big deal on LNG last year with Gibralta - alleged big untapped fields also around there

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ireland-will-be-hit-hardest-by-brexit-q6bvq57rf?shareToken=7ebd6f5fcd6d5c26cdb5e183b3e4df8c

Great. The Netherlands will also be hit, so a border country and my birth country get most economical damage from this.

Shell did a big deal on LNG last year with Gibralta - alleged big untapped fields also around there

No.

Shell did a deal to import a tiny quantity of LNG to Gibraltar so that they don't burn oil products, which are dirtier and dearer. It's really not a massive deal.

As far as oil/gas fields go, it's the wrong end of the Med. You want the east Med.

So important for "pride" and pretending these things still make us important...

Malta licences it's oil and gas reserves to other countries, IIRC?

That's the very core of Brexit isn't it? Being part of the EU has diminished us as a nation, if you believe these morons.

I had a brief fantasy about what it would be like if we saw spontaneous protests every week, every day on all of the shit that is being promised, that really started to disrupt things, then remembered that this is the land of small c conservatism and I'm all right Jack and wasn't it all better in the Empire...

They don't have any. People have been drilling there since the 1950s and nobody has found anything yet. So they import oil products, and just started importing LNG.

Oh good. The country i live in (netherlands) and the country of half my family (ireland). We seem to be on opposite sides of a shit coin

They don't have any. People have been drilling there since the 1950s and nobody has found anything yet. So they import oil products, and just started importing LNG.

Not on Malta, there's something that I can't quite recall about oil and gas rights in the med, mixed in with some sort of search and rescue deal. I am aware that this is a bit opaque.

East med?
Is that what they're calling landlocked oil fields these days?

http://m.ilgiornale.it/news/2015/09/17/adesso-litalia-si-prende-anche-i-profughi-che-malta-non-vuole/1172070/

I'd forgotten about this. Yes, there are some small fields off Sicily. Suspect that if (and it's a big 'if') there's anything to the story, it'd be more along the lines that Malta agreed to give up a weak claim over a disputed EEZ line.

East med?
Is that what they're calling landlocked oil fields these days?

Which landlocked oil field in Gibraltar do you mean, exactly?

If you mean the North African oil/gas fields located deep in the Sahara Desert, I'm hard pressed to see how they can be described as being particularly Mediterranean in geological terms or how Gibraltar has anything to do with them. Also, they're hardly 'untapped'.

m.ilgiornale.it/news/2015/09/17/a­desso-litalia-si-prende-anche-i-profughi­-che-malta-non-vuole/1172070/

I'd forgotten about this. Yes, there are some small fields off Sicily. Suspect that if (and it's a big 'if') there's anything to the story, it'd be more along the lines that Malta agreed to give up a weak claim over a disputed EEZ line.

From what I recall Malta is meant to provide S&R for a very wide region, but subs that to Italy who do it in return for exploration rights.