Judging by the uproar and constant speculation news, the other nations of the UK must be feeling a bit miffed that Gibraltar has now received priority treatment from the UK government.
The proudly British little island, population just over 30,000, has been a British Overseas Territory since being ceded to Great Britain "in perpetuity" under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, as what appeared to be part of a bribe to secure Britain's withdrawal from the war of the Spanish Succession. Spain has being attempting to regain the territory ever since, despite the resistance of the island's population and the UK.
With the UK now exiting the EU, Donald Tusk has signaled that the EU will be taking a supportive position to EU member Spain, insisting that Spain has a say in any decisions arising from Brexit that could affect Gibraltar.
This has obviously raised alarm bells and patriotic flags in Westminster and added another unexpected complication to the Brexit negotiations, initially cancelling out the 'We might withdraw from EU Security' card in PM Theresa May's letter.
The outcry has overshadowed the debate on The Great Repeal Bill, which plans to relieve the UK from the yoke of about 19,000 EU laws by making them all British law at the stroke of a pen. Worryingly, the bill also includes so-called "“Henry VIII clauses”, which will then let the government change those laws without recourse to parliament! A great transfer of power to the government.
Catching up on activity across The Pond, scientists are increasingly feeling affected by the new administration. In Der Spiegel, German biologist and researcher in the US, Heike Lindner, now feels that the working environment has significantly changed. Heike comes from the former East Germany and thinks that it is not so far-fetched that, just as people are already been stopped from coming into the US, there may be future restrictions on who may leave.
Arctic researcher Victoria Hermann found that since January, the surge of data on the Arctic that used to be available on US government sites has transformed into a slow, incessant march of deleting datasets, webpages and policies about the Arctic. Fortunately, the information is not lost, still being stored elsewhere, but it adds to the workload trying to find new sources of formerly easily accessible published research. in a Guardian article, Victoria says:
"I now come to expect a weekly email request to replace invalid citations, hoping that someone had the foresight to download statistics about Arctic permafrost thaw or renewable energy in advance of the purge."
and
"The consequences of vanishing citations, however, pose a far more serious consequence than website updates. Each defunct page is an effort by the Trump administration to deliberately undermine our ability to make good policy decisions by limiting access to scientific evidence."
Full article here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/28/arctic-researcher-donald-trump-deleting-my-citations.
George Orwell was familiar with the process and had the Ministry of Truth in his novel 1984, which rewrote history as required.
Before we sit on our own laurels, it should be noted that the subject of climate change has been remarkably quiet in both Brexit and the EU.
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