Who lost Gibraltar?
A little background knowledge is always helpful.
There are few people better qualified to talk about the workings of the European Union than South-West MEP Graham Watson. When he spotted that the EU had approved a Spanish application for waters off Gibraltar he knew there would be trouble.
The Madrid government had managed to register a site of Special Community Interest under EU environmental legislation - the UK had lost control of territorial waters.
How could this have happened? Did we not get there first? What happened to the centuries-old British defence of the rock?
Parliamentary questions revealed little. It appeared that the EU Habitats directive ignored an earlier British claim.
Now Graham's expert knowledge came into play. Not just his understanding of Brussels, but his knowledge of the high seas.
Because Mr Watson's father served with the Royal Navy, and he is a qualified marine navigator himself, he spotted what all the Foreign Office experts had missed.
We did get there first, but on the original British application, Graham discovered, we misplaced The Rock!
"In the UK's application for an SCI, Gibraltar was positioned at longitude 5 degrees 22 minutes East of Greenwich. Yet Gibraltar is situated at 5 degrees 22 minutes West of the prime meridian. In other words the UK's submission placed it in waters north of Algiers, which means that the Spanish application did not overlap with our SCI."
The Foreign Office admit that "an administrative error" was made. Although they say maps submitted with their application clearly show the bit of water they meant to designate, the decision has gone against Britain.
They are now fighting a rear-guard action to get it back, saying:
The UK therefore does not recognise the validity of the Estrecho Oriental designation as submitted by Spain. No Member State has the authority to act under the authority Habitats Directive in any territory outside its control.
All very patriotic.. However.. If one of Nelson's officers had made such a mistake he would have been keel-hauled at the very least!
If Sir Francis Drake's navigators had taken the same bungling approach, the Spanish Armada could have sailed up and down the channel at will..
Graham Watson says that if he had had his way Spain would not have even been admitted to the EU until they'd renounced their claim on Gibraltar.
He is now calling on David Miliband to re-state the British ownership of Gibraltar's territorial waters... assuming he can work out where they are.
Welcome to the hustings! I'm Peter Henley, the BBC's political reporter in the south of England. From parish councils in Sussex, to European politics in Oxford, this is the blog for you. 
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