Madrid has claimed victory in an argument with Britain over the status of Gibraltar, after the European Parliament passed a law that referred to the peninsula as a “colony of the British Crown.” The row may be a foretaste of Britain’s diminished heft once it leaves the European Union, Reuters said. A Spanish government spokesman said it was “the first time that the European Parliament and the… member states have recognized that Gibraltar is a colony,” and “a great step forward for the position and claims made by Spain.” Spain ceded the port at the mouth of the Mediterranean to Britain in 1713 after a war, but claims sovereignty over it. Gibraltar was a “crown colony” when Britain joined the European bloc in 1973, but London reclassified it as a “British overseas territory” in 2002.