There were 500 people at the meeting. They each had to go through a metal detector to be allowed to enter. His boss, Santiago Abascal, said last week that the border should be closed immediately.

However, their Cadiz candidate Agustin Rosety mentioned that they did not want to close the border, obviously knowing what that would mean to La Linsa and other parts of the Campo area, which has the highest unemployment in Spain.

But the Vox representatives described the Spanish workers in Gibraltar as 'hostages' of the Rock.

Rosety said they would want to strictly apply the Schengen treaty at the border (which would cause the longest queues ever) to stop smuggling. He said tobacco sales repreented a third of Gibraltar's revenue.

Ortega Smith, who is the party's secretary general, said they would never give up their claim to Gibraltar's sovereignty, which was Spanish 'by right and by history.'

As has been offered by others in the past, they said they want to invest in La Linea to make it one of the best cities to work and to live in.

Vox would not allow that Gibraltar's wealth be used to buy them, as is happening in Madrid and Seville they claimed. "Gibraltar is Spanish," he asserted.

11-11-2019 PANORAMAdailyGIBRALTAR