Nick Clegg’s wife says Gibraltar is Spanish and admits they avoid talking about it at home. Credit: Anthony Nolan charity / Flickr / Colinmthompson / Shutterstock
She’s married to a former British deputy prime minister, yet when a Spanish TV interviewer asked whether Gibraltar is Spanish, Miriam González Durántez answered with a plain yes. Now the woman asking Spaniards for their votes says she and Nick Clegg avoid the subject at home.
She was asked on Spanish TV and said yes
Miriam González Durántez, the wife of former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, has said Gibraltar is Spanish, not British, in a television interview broadcast on Tuesday October 13.
Asked on the Spanish current affairs programme En boca de todos whether Gibraltar is Spanish, she replied “Yes, of course”.
Then came the question plenty of people will have wanted answered: does her husband agree? She said the couple try not to talk about Gibraltar, with each defending their own position, and added that women have minds of their own.
She’s asking Spanish voters for their support
González Durántez, a Spanish lawyer and former European Commission official, was promoting Democracia 21 (Democracy 21), the new centre-liberal party she’s started as an alternative to Spain’s two big parties, the governing Socialists (PSOE) and the conservative People’s Party (PP).
She isn’t in government and Miriam is trying to gain votes ahead of the elections, so phrases like this can be taken with a pinch of salt. Though it does come from a politician whose husband led the Liberal Democrats and served as Britain’s deputy prime minister, which makes it all the more striking to hear.
The border only came down in July
Her words land just three months after the fence between La Línea de la Concepción and Gibraltar was removed on Wednesday July 15, the day after a UK-EU treaty was signed. About 15,000 Spaniards cross every day for work, roughly half of Gibraltar’s workforce.
However, the treaty doesn’t settle who the territory belongs to. Britain has held Gibraltar since 1713 while Spain has always maintained its claim, and the deal was designed to keep British sovereignty in place.
In the 2016 Brexit referendum, 96 per cent of Gibraltar’s voters backed staying in the EU, and the territory is home to about 38,000 people.
Her party now has to say where it stands
So far, Democracia 21 has pitched itself on cleaning up Spanish politics, and says it’s open to deals across the political divide on issues like housing. Spain’s next general election must be held by August 2027, so voters will have plenty of chances to hear where the party stands on Gibraltar and everything else before then.