So no, as a general rule I can't agree. I can certainly agree that there are some rather silly cases, but it's just not practical for all islands to be self-governing, so I can't agree with the general rule you propose.

Is this your standard for whether or not something is colonialism? Do you apply it consistently throughout, even when its inconvenient for you?

I think the twp main problems are not who Gibraltar belongs to, but 1. Gibraltar is that it is kind of a tax haven next to one of th areas of Spain with more poverty and unemployment, which is also one of the main drug entrances of the country. This combibation is explosive and really problematic for the people in the Campo de Gibraltar, especially the youth. 2. The people of Gibraltar must also be sovereign and don't want to belong to Spain, so I think we should respect that.

I think this kind of agreement make a compromise, integrating better Gibraltar with the area, making it possible for the people around to benefit from the Gibraltar's economy, bridging Gibraltar and Spain closer, while respecting the sovereignity of the people of Gibraltar.

However, I must say, a similar agreement could be done with Gibraltat belonging to Spain, which I would consider fairer, but still not the most important point.

> Questions about ceding the territory to the United Kingdom and later to Canada have been raised since its creation; however, its status has remained unchanged.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Roberts,_Washington

That's the same, whether it's Gibraltar, Scotland, Cornwall, the Canary Islands, Ceuta, Taiwan, Falklands, Cyprus, Texas, Point Roberts, Crimea, Canada, Greenland, etc etc.

We can argue about the thresholds needed, the length of time of residence ("squatters rights" etc), the minimum size of a given area, but the principal remains.

Meaning: the people who live in a place get to decide who governs them and their society.

People in Gibraltar, The Falklands, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland all have different wants, needs and asks of the UK, and the UK honours all of them. There are other overseas territories with different relationships, plus the Commonwealth too.

If that ask changes (and in Northern Ireland it likely will in our lifetimes, the others less so), the governance will change.

Sometimes there is an ask for a closer relationship through the British Commonwealth (such as South Africa). Sometimes there is an ask for the UK to go away, thanks but no thanks (such as Malta). Each relationship is handled individually, but through a lens of self-determination. That's the priority in the FCO, in Parliament, in UK media. If a tiny nation wants to be British, the UK will go to war over it despite it making little sense (Falklands). If a tiny nation wants independence despite tactical advantage for UK to keep it, independence will be fought for (Malta happened, Diego Garcia is a WIP - watch this space). Where there is division (Northern Ireland), the majority view is observed, but with democratic and cultural structures created to try and make sure minority views have a voice in that governance.

That said, there is a caveat: observance of treaties tend to over-ride local preference in some cases, so if there is a legal argument to ignore the wishes of the locals, those wishes may be ignored: Hong Kong is the most prominent example of this in recent times (locals seemed to want to stay British, China said the 100-year agreement was up and there'd be no renewal, end of, so China it became).

Diego Garcia is another example, which has got messy because of the Whitehouse not understanding the UK's perverse inclination towards local democracy and the right to self-determination (see also non-UK entities the Whitehouse has not understood well: Greenland, absurd noises about Canada, and so on).

When able, the UK has consistently been committed to restoring governance to a local population's preferred model peacefully since ~1950 (India being the last real mess), and if the people of Gibraltar want to be governed by the Spanish, they'd be governed by the Spanish within ~2-3 years.

The idea that local people should have no say in this because "it's obvious" who "they belong to", is the colonialist notion here. A land isn't about geography. It's about people. It took a long time for the UK to understand this. Eventually they did. Most European colonial powers did. Others are still trying to catch up, it seems.

The Falklands were never Argentinian. The "native" inhabitants are the ones currently living there.

Must give props to English honesty though, most people would be savvy enough to come up with some sophism to cover this reprehensible chain of thought. But it's so ingrained in your minds that you have some divine right to your unlawful colonial holdings you just won't even bother.

PD: get the fuck out of Ireland and allow their Scots their referendum.

As an aside, I have always found it ironic how Spain continuously whines about Gibraltar while doing the exact same thing to Morocco. At the very least, Spain was smart/lucky enough to lobby the UN early on to not include Ceuta and Melilla in the decolonization list.

Or do you think Spain has a legal right based on geographic proximity to enforce a culture on those people despite existing treaties, laws, culture and democracy?

> Since 1 January 2005, if you are born in Northern Ireland, you can claim Irish citizenship if your parent (or parents) are either British or Irish citizens, or one of them has lived on the island of Ireland for at least 3 out of the 4 years immediately before your birth.

> unlike Northern Ireland, and maybe Kent, does not have a land border with the EU.

NI's Land Border with Ireland is a "special" border. Ireland isn't in the Schengen Area (IIRC Cyprus is the only other EU country that isn't Schengen), and as a result of that has passport checks at all arrival areas - this is _because_ of the border with NI already. It was already special cased, and thankfully hasn't ended up with a UN buffer zone as a result of this mess.

That said, I agree with you 98%!

A generalisation that only applied to, at most, 52% of the voting British public

EDIT: not Schengen, sorry, although I'm pretty sure I just used my national (European) ID to go to London many many years ago and not my passport.