>In the past, I would have been inclined to argue that Gibraltar was a
>separate country from GB&NI for purposes such as these, especially since
>the UK government tries to categorize Gibraltar as being
>Overseas

It would consider that it's effectively a separate country/state,
particularly since there are immigration controls between the UK and
Gibraltar. It's certainly not an integral part of the United Kingdom.

>but since I have read that there is now a district for the EU elections
>consisting of Gibraltar and a part of Southwest England, I suppose I must
>reconsider.

That's another issue. Gibraltar is the only UK overseas territory that is
part of the EU, but for various reasons, was never allowed to participate
in the European Parliamentary elections. However, this was successfully
challenged in the European Court of Human Rights which ruled that the
Gibraltarians should not be disenfranchised as decisions of the European
Parliament applied to them.

Unfortunately, the population of Gibraltar is too small to justify a
separate constituency, and as the citizens of Gibraltar are considered to
be UK citizens for EU purposes, the only option was to include the
territory in one of the UK electoral regions. It was considered most
appropriate to place it in the South-West Region of England as this
traditionally had the closest ties to the territory.

Regards,

Kevin Meynell