Her Majesty the Queen politely declines request to visit Gibraltar

FOLLOWING the circulation of a petition, which gathered 10,000 signatures, requesting Her Majesty to visit Gibraltar, during the summer the Deputy Chief Minister Dr Joseph Garcia forwarded it to Buckingham Palace via the Gibraltar Office in London.

Although a response was received during the election campaign in Gibraltar, it was considered inappropriate to release details until December 2.

The Queen said in her letter that she greatly appreciates the loyalty of the people of Gibraltar but that she has no plans to visit the Rock, especially since overseas travel is very limited.

This is not so surprising when considering that she is 89-years-old and Prince Philip is 94 and during 2015, they only travelled to Germany and Malta. There are also always complaints from Spain about royal visits although the people of Gibraltar will at least be slightly comforted by the fact that the Princess Royal is due to visit in 2016.

In some online stories concerning this matter in both Gibraltar and Spain as well as the government press release, the following quote supposedly from Her Majesty is included: ‘This year marks the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War’. 

As this year is actually the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, we hope that this is a journalistic mistake rather than an early sign of memory loss in the Palace.