We Pledge Allegiance

Let's play a game of word association, suggests Jim Lagares Ballantine, whose ancestors first settled in Gibraltar in 1792. "It might go like so: black-white, good-bad, British-Spanish," he says. "I feel cold, warm, sick, hungry — but British is what I am." And if most of the 28,000 residents of the Rock have their way, British is what they'll remain.

Officials from Britain and Spain meet this month for further talks on the territory's future. The two countries are closer to agreement than at any point since 1713, when the King of Spain, under the Treaty of Utrecht, ceded sovereignty "in perpetuity" to the Crown of Great Britain. Spain has been fighting to get Gibraltar back ever since, and both sides hope that this historic dispute between two E.U. members will be sorted out by summer — at least at the bilateral level — most likely with a draft proposal for phased-in shared sovereignty.

For Gibraltarians, though, there's little to sort out. They're British. A typical family living on this outcrop of pine-dotted rock at the mouth of the Mediterranean may have roots in Ireland, Italy, Malta, Morocco and, yes, Spain. But a stroll down Main Street shows that the biggest cultural influence has been Britain. Letters go into mailboxes — no, postboxes — marked with the Queen's monogram. Conversations, though in the vernacular Spanglish, are peppered with Briticisms like "bloke" and a car's "boot." And tea-time at the Rock Hotel means fresh scones and cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off.

To Gibraltarians, these are small cultural signs of a deep loyalty. "There's really no need for all this hassle between Britain and Spain," says Karen Diaz, who believes that Spain's government, not its people or its culture, is the problem. Like many Gibraltarians, Diaz often hops over the border to see friends in Spain. Her family even speaks Spanish at home. But, she says, "I'll be Spanish over my dead body." And only against the votes of Gibraltarians. The territory's constitution says that any change in sovereignty must be approved by referendum. In the last one, in 1967, the vote to remain British was 12,138 to 44.

It doesn't help Spain's case that many Gibraltarians still remember the Franco era. In 1969, upset by a constitutional amendment that added the referendum requirement, the Spanish strongman closed the border. The move, unreversed until 1985, hurt both sides, splitting families with branches in Spain and Gibraltar and putting hundreds of Spaniards, who had worked on the Rock, on the dole. Franco's strategy "put back our cause by decades," says a senior Spanish diplomat. "All it did was create a siege mentality and bring them closer together instead of closer to Spain." An E.U. aid offer, worth €60 million to Gibraltar — which gets no subsidies from Britain — and nearby parts of Spain, provoked accusations of attempted bribery.

Legend has it that Britain will hold Gibraltar as long as its famed colony of Barbary apes survives. The simians are unlikely to die off soon; nor are the humans, who will invariably veto any form of Spanish sovereignty. Britain has known this all along. With Foreign Secretary Jack Straw's continued promises to put this issue to a vote, skeptics wonder whether a settlement, then rejection of a settlement, has been London's short-term plan all along. Even if it falls short of removing a thorn in Anglo-Spanish relations, Britain would fulfill its duties, first to Spain and the E.U. ("We tried"), and secondly to Gibraltar ("We kept our promise").

Chief Minister Peter Caruana boycotted the last round of talks because he wanted to go as Gibraltar's representative, not as part of Britain's delegation. He says that if Britain and Spain want to make a deal on Gibraltar down the road, they'll find a way, no matter what the local constitution says. "They do not intend to put everything to referendum before formally agreeing it between themselves," he told TIME. For most Gibraltarians, though, sovereignty seems a non-issue, at least in daily life. They'll offer strong opinions when asked, usually by outsiders, but among themselves rarely speak of becoming Spanish, Karen Diaz says. It comes up "only if [Britain's Europe Minister] Peter Hain is on the television. Then we get very annoyed."

In this, Queen Elizabeth's Jubilee Year, one question faces her subjects: What do you give a monarch who has (or has had) almost everything, including entire swaths of Africa? For Gibraltar, the best gift for a Queen whose dominion has shrunk in each decade of her reign would probably be loyalty. And in this outpost of the Empire, support for the Crown is still solid. As a rock.