The Chief Minister, Fabian Picardo,  yesterday addressed the Gibraltar Day in London Evening Reception.

The Cheif Minister's address follows below:

My Lords, Your Excellencies, Ministers, Members of Parliament and our many  beloved former Governors, 

Distinguished guests, 

Ladies and gentlemen, 

What a pleasure it is to welcome you to this glittering event at what is properly known  as 30, St Mary Axe. 

The place which the world has come to know, more colloquially, as The Gherkin. This is a place that represents modern Britain. 

And our home, Gibraltar, is also a place that proudly represents modern Britain and  that modern Britain can be proud of. 

For we are not a place of colonialism, despite our status in international law. We are not a place of a fading empire and a waning influence. 

Far from it.  

We are the foremost hub for digital business in the online gaming space. The foremost location of choice for all types of insurance sold into the United Kingdom. And not just vehicle insurance but also travel and pet insurance too.  

A place that contributes to British consumers by creating more choice and keeping  their prices down 

But not a place of tax leakage for the Chancellor 

Because all taxes due on business done in the UK is paid in the UK by all our  operators. 

We are not a place of tax evasion or tax avoidance. 

And that myth should be put to bed. 

So, Gibraltar’s first woman Minister for Business has a good story to tell the United  Kingdom’s first woman Chancellor of the Exchequer.  

And we are at the forefront of so much more. 

We are a place of strategic military significance, now as we always have been.

Many of you will know that Gibraltar is now also a place that is avante guard socially also. 

We are no back water when it comes to equality.  

Far from it, when it comes to sexual and reproductive rights we are in the vanguard. And with more socially progressive measures to be debated soon. Why, because we are a place as modern as the rest of Britain, with all that entails.  

Indeed, whether it is in the field of business or social progress the United Kingdom has  many reasons to be proud of how Gibraltar has developed in the last decades.  

With equality at the top of our social agenda. 

With transparency, accountability and social responsibility at the top of our commercial  agenda. 

And with commitment and loyalty at the top of our agenda when it comes to supporting  His Majesty’s military facilities on the Rock.  

But tonight I want to tell you also about how proud you can be of the political position  of Gibraltar in the European equation.  

From 2016 we have maintained that we want to retain close links with the EU.  It is trite to remind you that 96% of us voted to remain in the European Union.  

We have successfully negotiated our role in the Withdrawal Agreement so we have  not suffered a hard Brexit. 

We have successfully negotiated ongoing interim arrangements at Gibraltar frontier  for Gibraltar residents to be exempted from stamping since the UK’s departure from  the EU, despite the odd blip here and there.  

And maturely, in the closest partnership with Britain, and with open hearts and minds,  we have made balanced and reasonable offers to resolve the final issues in dispute in  our ongoing negotiation with the EU. 

We have made generous proposals that avoid any concession on sovereignty by us  or any other party to the negotiation.  

Today I spoke at length again to Foreign Secretary Lammy before he caught up with  the Spanish Foreign Minister in Luxembourg. 

We have designed proposals that guarantee the safety and security of the Schengen  Area and the integrity of the single market.

And all the while, not requiring us or any of our negotiating partners to cede on any of  our historic fundamentals  

It has not been easy.  

But Kennedy said it best when he explained that the United States chose to go to the  moon in the 1960s, not because it was easy but because it was hard. 

Because the easy thing would have been to succumb to the despair that Brexit engenders in so many in Gibraltar and the Campo. 

To blame others.  

To blame Cameron, Johnson, Farage and even Junker and Merkel if we wanted to. 

In Gibraltar, we can just as easily also make it all Rajoy’s fault, Margallo’s fault,  Sanchez’s fault or even Albares’ fault.  

But this is a time for serious people. 

For serious thinking and for the serious grown ups to take the serious decisions we  have to take in order to prevent conflict and not stoke it. 

Of course, we may yet fail.  

But we must not fail for a lack of trying. 

For lack of imagination.  

Or for lack of determination.  

Because the world is a less safe place now than it was in 2016. 

In fact, my role now as the socialist Chief Minister of the most precious real estate in  the Mediterranean is to emulate the thinking of the most conservative of Prime  Ministers of the United Kingdom. 

As Mrs Thatcher said on her election, quoting St Francis of Assisi: “Where there is discord, may we bring harmony.  

… 

And where there is despair, may we bring hope.” 

If we can do all of any of that, without requiring concessions, we must.  And I think we can. 

Although we are ready if we can’t. 

But continue to try we must.  

And that is why we are going the extra mile. 

That is why the brilliant official team led by Michael Llamas and Daniel D’Amato for  Gibraltar and Lindsay Appleby and Robbie Bulloch for the UK is going beyond what  we might have thought was a marathon when we started. 

My dear friends, this negotiation for a UK / EU Treaty has turned from a marathon into  a double iron man apparently aiming for the peak of Mount Everest. 

But none of us is going to stop until we get it right 

Last week’s incident when the spectre of wet stamping became a momentary reality  at our frontier is but a distasteful aperitif of what No Deal would look like.  

We are ready for it. 

Of course we are. 

As we proved by reciprocating, more in sorrow than in anger, within hours. 

Because we know cannot achieve a successful negotiating outcome without steeling ourselves and being ready for No Negotiated Outcome 

But my duty,  

My obligation,  

And my commitment to my people is to ensure that we achieve an agreement if one  is possible. 

And not just an agreement that works for one of us around the table.  It must work for ALL of us around the table.  

AND, more importantly, the agreement that emerges must also enjoy democratic  consent amongst the people of Gibraltar.  

My dear friends, 

I came into politics 30 years ago to say NO to certain things if they were ever asked  of us. 

But I did not come into politics to say NO to everything. 

I also came into politics to say yes to the things that do not require concessions and can finally unleash the massive potential Gibraltar and the region around us can  release to our mutual benefit.

And if we can harness that potential and grow it exponentially in modern, viable  arrranagements with the EU and our neighbours then we will not be talking just of joint  prosperity. 

We will have built a new and better tomorrow.  

We will have been architects of a future to be proud of. 

Better even than the hopes of our forefathers and the dreams of the most ambitious  of our children.  

Because moments of apparent crisis also create chances to seize opportunities that  might never come again. 

AND if we are equal to the task, 

THEN we will have made a success of the Brexit that so many nay sayers hoped would  be the end of us.  

So the ball is now firmly in Spain’s Court. 

Our proposals to resolve the final issues in dispute are fair, balanced and respectful of  the Schengen and Single Market acquis. 

I hope they will not delay in accepting them or proposing acceptable derivates.  I say to our Spanish negotiating counterparts:  

Let us go the extra mile and cast the die of the future in the shape our children deserve  

AND NOT as it was so unfairly cast for our parents and grandparents and both sides  of Franco’s cruel frontier.  

Let US be the generation of politicians that break the mould of confrontation and  delivered the future that inspires the rest of the fractured world in which we live. 

To Jose Manuel Albares and Pedro Sanchez, progressive politicians who I admire as  fellow socialists, I offer Gibraltar’s hand of friendship, cooperation and mutual socio economic success for our people. 

I offer solutions that will enable us to progress and improve the lives of hundreds of  thousands of people.  

I offer solutions that will banish discord and despair and replace them with harmony  and hope for a future filled with opportunities in Gibraltar and the Campo that can be  – that will be - the envy of world. 

So that, together, we make Gibraltar and the region of the Campo the pre-eminent  digital hub of the southern flank of Europe.

So that young people in the area will never again think of any illicit trade as the only  route to success. 

And so that the little part of Britain that I represent can stand proudly as a geo strategic  lynchpin that UNITES and does not divide. 

My dear friends, generations of conflict can give way to generations of cooperation.  But all this hinges on this moment. 

History has conspired to present us with a fork on the road. 

A choice we will have no choice but to make.  

One route points to the continued confrontation we know so well and we will navigate  so successfully if we have to.  

The other, however, points towards a new cooperation, a new understanding and a  new level of success of which our ancestors and our successors can be equally and  justly proud. 

And all without concession by any of the negotiating parties on any of our fundamental  positions. 

All securing our respective positions on sovereignty, jurisdiction and control and not  challenging anyone else’s. 

But the time for decision is coming.  

And none of us should fall short when that time comes. 

None of us should think of ourselves.  

All of us should think of our people first and foremost.  

Our children, in particular.  

As Britain seeks to reset its relationship with Europe, we can be the pioneers of that  post Brexit cooperation.  

I will remain optimistic that we can be. 

Although, if we are not, I know Britain will be there to support us. 

And I know that all of you in this room will be the backbone of that support.  But, for now, I am delighted to leave you with a man with a bigger challenge than me. 

Whilst I only need to get Spain, the European Commission and the Foreign Secretary  in the right place to do a deal, he is trying to do that twenty seven times over.  

A doddle, no doubt, for the Rt Hon Nick Thomas Symonds…