Royal Navy’s nuclear-powered submarine HMS Ambush docked in Gibraltar on June 25 arriving shortly after a Spanish official announced the possibility of a joint sovereignty over ‘The Rock’.
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said during an interview that Brexit opened greater possibilities for Spanish control of the British overseas territory.
Gibraltar voted 95.9 per cent in favor of staying in the EU and UK’s Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said that protecting Gibraltar’s interests would be much harder now that the UK was outside the EU, Daily Mail reported.
While navy officials said that the nuclear-powered submarine’s visit to ‘The Rock’ was part of scheduled operational tasking, the timing of her arrival, shortly after the Spanish official’s interview, is a striking coincidence.
HMS Ambush, the second Royal Navy vessel to bear the name, is the second Astute-class submarine commissioned in March 2013. The submarine is armed with Spearfish torpedoes and Tomahawk missiles.