Britain's Foreign Secretary David Lammy (L) meets Spain's Minister of Foreign Affairs Jose Manuel Albares (R) at Carlton House in London. | NEIL HALL / POOL

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This week UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy and his Spanish counterpart Jose Manuel Albares had a heart-to-heart in London, but Albares does not appear to know one part of his body from his elbow.
While Gibraltar was very much the backdrop for yet another meeting about the future of The Rock, Lammy kicked the love-in off by stating that the UK and Spain shared “an important historic relationship”.

That message was echoed by Albares, who spoke of the UK and Spain’s “very strong bilateral relationship”. “It’s half a million Spaniards living here in the UK and as many Britons living in Spain, we are among the main investors in each other’s countries and a very strong connectivity.

“So, we want to structure this political relation in benefit of our people. “We are very happy to see that United Kingdom wants to reset the relationship with European Union.

“Having the largest Britain community in any European country, we think that it’s in the benefits of everybody that we make the United Kingdom get as close as possible to the European Union,” he went on. Great to hear, but has he failed to take note of the wave of anti-foreign sentiment which has been sweeping across Spain and been felt hard in the UK?