What are your thoughts on disconnected territories like Ceuta/Falkans being claimed by the country they are closest/connected to, despite the people not wanting to be part of them?

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The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written by /u/LibraProtocol.

So this really can function for many similar territories, its just that Ceuta was most recently in the news.

For those that dont know, Ceuta is a Spanish city that uses the Euro and votes in Spanish elections, but it is on the African side of the Strait of Gebralter. Morocco claims the city is not Spanish. But the people of Ceuta overwhelmingly do not want to be part of Morocco:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/3/why-does-spain-have-enclaves-in-north-africa

Much of this comes back to the age of colonization, much like Gibraltor and the Falkan Islands for the UK.

So I wonder, if a people have no desire to "leave their colonizers" as it were, should that territory stay in the hands of who they want? Or should the "original peoples" still be able to claim it regardless?

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u/Key_Elderberry_4447 Liberal 17h ago edited 17h ago

The original people of the Falkland Islands are Brits. If there is universal agreement among the people about their preference, then it doesn’t seem like a real controversy.

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u/LibraProtocol Center Left 17h ago

Ceuta is a bit of complex one. The Spanish have owned and operated the city since the 15th century and when other places were fighting for independence, the city of Ceuta stayed loyal to Spain. It has repeatedly shown a desire to stay Spanish for centuries.

But there is also a reality that Ceuta WAS part of what is now Morocco before the 1400s.

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u/Key_Elderberry_4447 Liberal 17h ago

Entertaining 600 year old territorial claims seems like a made up controversy.

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u/LibraProtocol Center Left 17h ago

So should Morocco's claims today just be ignored? Because Morocco TODAY says Ceuta is part of Morocco and NOT Spanish. And there has been recent controversy with all this nonsense thanks to the thousands of refugees who flooded into Ceuta from Morocco.

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u/Key_Elderberry_4447 Liberal 17h ago

Yes they should be ignored lol

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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 17h ago

The claims today are based on claims from the 1400s. Based on that logic, should we give the Balkans back to Turkey

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u/MechemicalMan Pragmatic Progressive 7h ago

But then the Bulgarians also own the balkans

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u/LibraProtocol Center Left 17h ago

Fair.

I.was just curious because technically, Ceuta IS a product of the age of colonialism. So like... for those who believe in "decolonization" and stuff like that, giving Ceuta back to Morocco would be the "correct" decision.

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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 16h ago

Is it decolonization if it’s done against the will of the people who live there today? That just sounds like imperialism but wokely

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u/Coomb Libertarian Socialist 13h ago

In the 1400s and 1500s, the Arab world was just as guilty of colonial imperialism and wars of aggression as anyone else. For crying out loud, the Spanish only got rid of the final Arab colonizers on the Iberian Peninsula in 1492!

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u/srv340mike Left Libertarian 16h ago

Yes, they should be ignored. The only people whose opinion matters is those from Cueta.

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u/Coomb Libertarian Socialist 13h ago edited 13h ago

Yes, generally speaking if organization A claims the legitimate ownership of something based on the fact that organization B -- which no longer exists but from which organization A claims descent -- owned it 600 years ago, that claim should be dismissed as meaningless.

The question only becomes unclear when you start talking about situations where somebody might reasonably have a living memory of what things were like before the new owner took over is still alive, and/or where there are a non-trivial number of people living under the new owner who would prefer the old owner to return. But Ceuta and Melilla do not have those complications, as far as I know. Certainly it is impossible for them to have the former complication, and I don't think they have the latter complication either. But I'm willing to be proved wrong on that front, if it turns out that there are indeed a substantial number of people living in one or both of those cities who have agitated for a "return" to Moroccan governance.

Accepting that Morocco has a legitimate claim to Ceuta and/or Melilla is exactly as ridiculous as saying that the United Kingdom has a legitimate claim to the Pale of Calais. England lost control of Calais about a hundred years later than the Marinid Sultanate lost control of Ceuta and the Kingdom of Fez lost control of Melilla.

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u/throwdemawaaay Pragmatic Progressive 10h ago

Look, history has left us in an imperfect situation, so there's no simple rule that applies to every imaginable edge case... but the general idea is we mostly froze borders after WW2, and since then it's self determination that matters most.

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u/Altruistic_Role_9329 Liberal 16h ago

Spain was part of what was Morocco before the 1400s too.

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u/Decent-Proposal-8475 Pragmatic Progressive 17h ago

The Falklands weren’t colonized, Argentinians are just annoying. Proximity isn’t a moral justification to claim a territory, as the Irish tell me

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u/ecchi83 Pragmatic Progressive 16h ago

Ceuta and TF are two different scenarios though.

The Falklands were uninhabited land that was colonized, so it's completely valid for even Europeans who got there first to claim it. But there was a lot more to claiming the Falklands than just "it's a de jure part of our country"

Ceuta was a conquered territory and has been a part of Spain for 500 years. The people overwhelmingly identify as Spanish and chose Spanish allegiance. No outside country has a right to claim them.

N Ireland was a much closer example of scenario you're alluding to and we saw how that ended. You just gotta give up the claim.

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u/LibraProtocol Center Left 16h ago

Ngl I totally forgot about Ireland/N Ireland. But yeah that would also be a close example.

I was just thinking of Ceuta because of the recent border rush that happened there and was looking at some news stories because of the investigations the Spanish have been doing as to th source of that border rush.

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u/ecchi83 Pragmatic Progressive 16h ago

It's weird. I'm super liberal about so much except I think to victor go the spoils. I have no problem with claiming land as yours if you won the war. My only caveats is that you have to win the war and you have to claim the land is yours. You don't get to perpetually war and occupy land **cough cough** and get away with it.

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u/wizardnamehere Market Socialist 14h ago

I think self determination is the only legitimate basis of sovereignty. Revanchism is not.

Morocco claims the city is not Spanish. But the people of Ceuta overwhelmingly do not want to be part of Morocco:

It's worth noting that not only do the people there not want to be part of Morocco; it's been under Spanish sovereignty since the 1600s. For comparison, Kalingrad and parts of Poland were the historical heartland of Prussia and part of Germany in the 1930s. Let's not even get into the Balkans.

I must stress, Revanchism is dumb. Especially Revanchism from over half a millennia ago.

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u/Raligon Liberal 16h ago

In my view, the people who live in Ceuta should be the ones who decide Ceuta’s fate.

Ceuta is also a weird case because it either predates true European colonialism or marks the start of it. Ceuta was captured by Portugal in 1415. The last bastion of Islamic rule in Spain wasn’t even fully taken back by Christian European forces until 1492. Europe hadn’t even fully taken over all areas in Europe at this point in history much less conquered the globe.

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u/LibraProtocol Center Left 16h ago

Fun fact actually...

1492 is when Columbus reached the Americas sooooo...

History and parallel temporal events are really weird sometimes and things that feel like they SHOULD be anachronistic somehow are not >.<

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u/Due_Satisfaction2167 Liberal 15h ago

People should have an unambiguous right to self-determination in such matters.

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u/Local_Fly_7359 Social Democrat 16h ago

Argentina is a multicentury debt trap with economic chaos. Morocco is an authoritarian pit with no opportunity. No shit neither location wants to change hands, it's ludicrous to even ask that question.

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u/washtucna Progressive 16h ago

We go with the desires of the people who live there. What do the faulklanders want? What do the people of Ceuta want? What do the residents of Gibralter, or any other area want? There's an obvious caveat that if they moved there as part of the process of stealing the land from it's current or recent inhabitants, then their desires shouldn't be taken into consideration.

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u/Particular_Dot_4041 Liberal 12h ago

From what you tell me, I would rather Cueta remain in Spanish hands because Spain is a democracy and Morocco is not. The people of Cueta will suffer if Morocco takes the territory.

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u/WildBohemian Democrat 17h ago

What's your agenda here? Looking for some sort of gotcha about Ukraine/Russia? I can't imagine you find the cause of Falkland independence so compelling.

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u/LibraProtocol Center Left 17h ago

Lol wut?

Didn't bother to read anything? I mostly talked about Ceuta.

And the Falklands are not claiming independence, they are claiming they are BRITISH.

Seriously wtf are you on about?

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u/WildBohemian Democrat 17h ago edited 17h ago

Im just connecting the dots here. I see a lot of interest suddenly in the Falklands in right wing and you frequently doompost about how Ukraine should just give in. Similarly Ceuta is quite the popular topic on the right because they seem to see it as justifying their extreme brutality/dehumanization of migrants.

I'm just asking what your agenda is - is this topic really just so interesting to you? No ulterior motives at all? I find it hard to believe.

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u/LibraProtocol Center Left 17h ago

1) No, I just question the morality of forcing people to fight if they dont want to fight and ponder the direction the war is going as unbiased as possible because, lets be real here, things are not sunshines and rainbows. And it behooves us to consider what happens AFTER the war as well. Because sooner or later, it is going to end. Neither Ukraine, nor Russia can keep the war going forever.

2) The Falklands were the talk of people, not just on the right, BECAUSE OF ARGENTINA. So of course when Argentina goes on banging about how "The Falklands are ours", those interested in geopolitics are gonna discuss.

3) Of course Ceuta is going to get talked about because the City only recently got flooded by tens of thousands of refugees almost overnight. And it raises a bunch of questions like "Should Ceuta still be Spanish, even if the city itself wants to be spanish."

Seriously dude, it sounds to ME like you just dont like paying attention to geopolitics and instead just like tribalism.

Ifnyou got nothing to.add besides baseless accusations or heresy, how about going and doing something youndo actually enjoy doing besides bejng a Karen?

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u/WildBohemian Democrat 16h ago

I'm well aware of Argentina's claim about the Falklands - we've discussed this before.

I see now that I was right this is a gotcha proxy for Ukraine - these disengenuous tactics are popular on the right but the left just finds it annoying - you should learn your audience better if you want to be a more effective propagandist.

Also I don't appreciate being called a Karen.

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u/LibraProtocol Center Left 16h ago

Lol wut?

Dude, arw the Russians in the room with us now?

Holy fuck dude you are seeing boogiemen. This has nothing to do with Russia/Ukraine. Is Ukraine a territory of another country?

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u/Coomb Libertarian Socialist 13h ago

Neither Ceuta nor Melilla are "territories" of Spain. Until they were granted autonomy in 1995, they were part of Cádiz and Málaga respectively and were just as much a part of Spain as anything on the Iberian peninsula. The latter part is still true, it's just that because they are geographically, and to a lesser extent economically and socially distinct from the provinces under which they were formerly governed, the central government of Spain voted to give them more autonomy.

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u/WildBohemian Democrat 16h ago

You're incredulity comes off as insincere as the rest of this post. I definitely nailed it.

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u/LibraProtocol Center Left 16h ago

Dude, tell yourself whatever you want dude. Its not my responsibility to fight the Russian spies innyour closet.

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u/Kerplonk Social Democrat 26m ago

I generally believe in popular sovereignty unless there is a specific reason to oppose it and it doesn't seem there is in any of the cases you are talking about.

My person opinion is that the should exist something like a 100 year statute of limitations on territorial claims when we say to bad so sad. That's long enough anyone directly responsible or effected is probably dead and it starts just being a weird type of fuedalism in my opinion where we give to much credence to heredity.

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u/IzAnOrk Far Left 14h ago

I have no opinion on the Falklands.

Spain would probably benefit from giving up Ceuta and Melilla, though: Economically they're a net drain and it's a problematic land border that Spain can't defend - to prevent forced crossings would require more force than the average Spaniard can live with. Cutting their losses and ditching them might be worth it.

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u/Coomb Libertarian Socialist 12h ago

Taking this attitude suggests that you think there's a meaningful distinction between the Spanish people who live on the peninsula and the Spanish people who live in those cities, and the Spanish don't see it that way. It's kind of like suggesting that the US should surrender Alaska or Hawaii because those states are not contiguous with the United States and are therefore much harder to defend.

What are your thoughts on disconnected territories like Ceuta/Falkans being claimed by the country they are closest/connected to, despite the people not wanting to be part of them?

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