When Margaret Thatcher sent a large task force to the Falkland Islands back in 1982, following Argentina's invasion of the islands and South Georgia, it had more to do with pulling the heart strings of Little Englanders, playing the patriotism card, in order to help her chances of reelection following a bad couple of years in the opinion polls and an economy that was struggling and the deaths of several hundred Argentine sailors, and some (*cue fake tears) British heroes achieved its goal - she was re-elected by a landslide a year later.
Today things are different. I'm sure that Cameron quite fancies the poll boost that a war PM tends to get (Tony Blair can only puzzle as to why his cynical wars backfired) and it would serve as a wonderful distraction from his flatlining economy and other political woes, but now there is a far bigger issue.
Oil and gas fields have been discovered beneath the waters around the islands. It's been long suspected that there was a large amount of oil and gas there, someone just had to find it. So now the battle for the Falklands has another purpose - the pursuit of climate destroying oil.
Because of the Falkland Islands legal status, however, the UK won't benefit from the oil and gas found there. The UK spends millions of pounds each year protecting the islands, including having two warships permanently there, for which the islanders pay nothing, but the monies generated from discovery of oil and gas are the islanders. Every single one of them, men, women and children, could, it seems, become multi-millionaires but the UK won't receive a penny, or peso, of it. We, the UK taxpayers, pay to protect the islands, build them infrastructure, etc. but won't benefit from any oil windfall. How can that be right?
It, of course, makes no sense but raises the question, why do we continue paying out huge amounts of money to protect a set of bleak, inhospitable islands with a tiny population?
In the late 1970s the UK was trying to get rid of the Falklands and, had the Argentine junta not tried to gain popularity by invading the islands, there is every chance the islands would have been given away by the mid-1980s.
I'm all for self-determination but, surely, that is to decide between independence and being ruled over. If the Falkland Islanders can choose who they want to pick up their security bill and not their independence it's like Southampton declaring that they are now a French port.
And it's not as if the Falkland Islands have always been under some sort of British flag. It was only in the 1820s that the UK stole them from Argentina! Hardly a long history.
So what will happen?
The Argentine government have accused the UK of upping the stakes and "militarising" the South Atlantic. The UK say they are simply changing ships (to a much bigger and more armed one) and that William Windsor, second in line to the British throne is there as a routine duty. They'll be lots of huffing and puffing (including, announced this week, the renaming of the Argentine football league as the "Cruiser General Belgrano Premier League") and eventually someone will do something stupid, quite probably for personal electoral gain.
I fear another conflict and the inevitable loss of life. I fear this will increase narrow-minded Little Englanders patriotism and that, if he times it right, an overall election win for David Cameron at the next general election. I fear the British taxpayer will be asked to pay more and more money for islands we don't really want and which it would make more sense to get rid of. And I fear that, with huge amounts of oil and gas being discovered, it will delay the inevitable development of alternative technologies and we'll have more decades of polluting carbon-based fuels.
My solution? Give the Falkland Islands to Argentina - it makes much more sense for them to look after the Malvinas, as they call them, and allow any Falkland Islanders who want to be "British" to settle on UK soil (though I guess they won't do that if there's a chance their snouts can be buried in the oil trough).
MILITARISATION OF THE DALKLANDS? (HUMOUR)
A couple of points:
ReplyDeleteThe costs to UK is less than 1% of the total UK defense budget. Plus we wouldn't even need defending if it wasn't for the threat from Argentina...
We have know there has been oil there for the last 10 years its only now "just" becoming economically viable to access.
The British military use the islands as a training ground for many different variations of combat and a lot of the forces deployed to the Gulf had extra training in the Islands.
The islands do put a fair bit back into the UK economy. They pay for all their students to come over the UK and study for one thing. The two main colleges are Peter Symonds and Chichester (obv all uni's for degree level education).
The history of islands as I am sure you are aware goes back further than 1820, this link might provide a bit more information on that topic:
http://falklandstimeline.wordpress.com/category/sovereignty/
Just a couple of things to consider perhaps...?
Thanks for that, Mark.
Deleteyes, a couple of interesting points - but, quite frankly, a couple of dozen students barely balances for the millions of pounds that he UK has ploughed into a place that we didn't want (until oil was found).
Surely those British forces would've been training in Cyprus or other places that has desert? Rather than a cold damp wet island in the south Atlantic?
ReplyDeleteEven the Brecon Beacons are better suited for training for the war in Afghanistan.
When and if the oil does become a viable option and is exploited then the Islanders can pay for their own security?
The UK would/could possibly benefit from the possible boom in infrastructure but it would be logically cheaper to ship in hundreds of workers from South America ie Chile and buy the machinery there rather than the expensive route of shipping manpower and oil rigs made in Britain.
The Falkland Oil and Gas Company would, as with all companies, choose the most logical and cheapest option.
All this talk about flag waving Falkland Islanders somehow being given the might of the British Navy and elite troops because they want to remain British is hogwash, what about the rights of the British who want to leave the EU? Where's their rights?
The people on the Falklands, 3000, of them a mere pawns in a post Colonial game of chess.
The UK never really got over the Victorian Era.
War in Afghanistan, troops in Africa, war ships in the South Atlantic. What next? Wars for "Humanitarian" reasons in the Sudan.....