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An armed Spanish gunboat has been chased out of British waters off Gibraltar amid rising tensions over the peninsular in the lead up to Brexit.
The Infanta Christina ship sailed past the coast of the British territory at around lunchtime in what Gibraltar said was an illegal incursion and was pursued by a British naval vessel patrolling the rock until it left.
The armed ship sailed into British waters just hours after Spanish foreign minister Alfonso Dastis told Britain to 'calm down' following Lord Howard's suggestion Theresa May would go to war over Gibraltar.
The government of Gibraltar posted a video of the ship on Twitter and wrote: 'Illegal incursion into British Gibraltar Territorial Waters by Spanish Navy patrol ship Infanta Cristina this afternoon.'
Tweeting a picture of the ship that he took today, David Parody wrote: 'In true Spanish style, to calm down, they send us a gun boat!'
Mr Parody, a Gibraltarian who was born and lives there, said the ship was around a mile off the coast, and claimed it is the seventh incursion into British waters by Spanish ships this year.
Asked if Britain should take military action, he said: 'We don't want to see gun boat diplomacy because there would be no winner in that, but this is bullying.
'We live in an age of diplomacy and Spain should respect that. Britain has even offered to take Spain to international court to resolve this issue and Spain has refused.'
The path of the British HMS Scimitar, which followed the Spanish vessel today, reveals how it had sailed well within Gibraltarian waters.
Mr Parody claims that there have been more than 100 incursions into British waters by Spanish navy ships since 2014, and even aircraft have also flown in Gibraltarian airspace without permission.