Although we will not deviate from our stated position that Gibraltar will never be Spanish, we reach out our hand in friendship and reiterate equally… - Fabian Picardo

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!

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.

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!