‘Franco Lives!’ Spanish Fascism and the Creation of a British Gibraltarian Identity

Abstract

In 1940, the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco launched a propaganda campaign, usually known as ‘Gibraltar, español’ [Gibraltar for Spain], aimed at the re-establishment of Spanish sovereignty over this tiny British colony on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula. Gibraltarians opposed Franco, who soon became their common enemy, performing their loyalty to the UK. Our chapter explores the extent to which Franco’s campaign, which culminated in the closure of the border in 1969, has shaped Gibraltarians’ national identity and has promoted a concomitant growing antipathy to Spanishness in Gibraltar. We demonstrate that Franco’s foreign policy not only helped the construction of Gibraltar’s national identity but that the remembrance of the Spanish dictatorship still shapes the way Gibraltarians see both Spain and themselves. This history largely accounts for Gibraltarians’ antipathy to joint sovereignty proposed by the Blair government and once again proposed by Madrid in the wake of Brexit.

This chapter is an output of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) project: Bordering on Britishness. An Oral History Study of 20th Century Gibraltar (Grant Ref. ES/K006223/1). Luis G. Martínez thanks the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU for granting him a Postdoctoral fellowship in 2017 to continue with his research on Gibraltar.