Self-determination is not an absolute right, and even as a qualified one it always cuts at least two ways.
There is every reason to suppose that if the majority in Northern Ireland has rejected the Good Friday Agreement, then it would have been imposed anyway.
Either by means of the United Kingdom-wide referendum that many people had wanted at the time. Or simply as the sovereign will of the Crown in Parliament of the United Kingdom, "and get out of that one".
It is within the capability of that same sovereign will to do as it pleased with the Falkland Islands.
If Margaret Thatcher's and Nicholas Ridley's original scheme, for a transfer of sovereignty followed by a leaseback, were the only way, either to prevent a second invasion, or, far more probably, to save thousands of jobs in Britain that would otherwise be lost by Mercosur and allied divestment, then that scheme would be put into operation without further ado.
It never occurred to Thatcher or Ridley for one second that it would have required validation at the ballot box on the Falklands themselves.
Their determination to proceed with it regardless of opinion there was the open invitation to Argentina to move in, a move that that country, which knew the British exceptionally well, was astonished to find elicited any reaction at all.
Thatcher then felt obliged to send a task force of ships that she had been about to sell off at a knocked down price to Argentina. Initially, she thought that that task force would be able to arrive within three days, and she refused to believe that the journey could possibly take three weeks.
The war in Northern Ireland eventually ended when the people of Great Britain, who had never looked at the Unionists in Northern Ireland and seen much of themselves, realised that they, too, had a qualified right of self-determination, itself qualifying that of the people of Northern Ireland.
The people of the United Kingdom would now be rather hard-pressed to look at the Falkland Islanders and see much of themselves, especially since those Islanders pretend for the British cameras that their large non-white, specifically St Helenian, minority does not exist.
Whether in a military, or far more probably in an economic, form, the day may come when the people of the United Kingdom realised that they, too, had a qualified right of self-determination, itself qualifying that of the people of the Falkland Islands.
That day may never come. But it may.
Are you nuts..?
ReplyDeleteLeaseback..? Why you fool, even the argies rejected this..
Did you know that we Falkland Islanders were aware of this and actually condoned it.. Knowing that the crazy argentines would not accept it..
Racial bigotism concerning the Saints.. Where do you get this crap from?
For pity's sake, correct this rubbish..
Tell it to them. Hundreds of St Helenians on the Falklands, but they are never, ever shown on British television.
DeleteThat is on purpose, because the Falkland Islanders know who their British support base is. But people like that are an ageing minority in Britain.
"Looking like Britain in the 1950s" would not be much of a selling point even if it were true, never when it isn't.
It was Thatcher who taught the British to place a monetary value on everything. They stopped being prepared to pay for Northern Ireland, and they may very well stop being prepared to pay for the Falkland Islands.
A second war would be deeply unpopular in Britain, to the extent that probably no Government would ever fight one. Britain has pulled out of enough rather more significant places, leaving beyond hitherto British populations considerably larger than the population of the Falkland Islands.
Because the saints are not shown on British television.. That's Racial Bigotry..?
DeleteWhat planet are you living on..
The ones over here remark on it.
DeleteThe right of people in Britain to self-determination in our dealings with these places, absolutely spot on.
ReplyDeleteThey don't grasp that we can pull out, we have pulled out of all sorts of places in our time. We are not obliged to keep them just because they want us to. There were far more white settlers in Africa than people on the Falklands but we pulled out and left them, under Tory governments every time.
DeleteA few gems from a previous post by the best commentator in Britain:
ReplyDelete"The Falklands War has the status that it has among certain people purely because of who was the Prime Minister at the time.
"If it had been any other Conservative Prime Minister, never mind a Labour one (and there very nearly was an Argentine invasion under Jim Callaghan, but he averted it), then they would be indifferent, if not downright hostile.
"Most of them cannot remember another Conservative Prime Minister of whom they remotely approved, still less whom they worshipped.
"If this had been Ted Heath's or John Major's war, then they would go so far as to say that the wrong side won, because they would side with absolutely anyone against Heath or Major. They have probably forgotten that Major did in fact have a war."
And:
"In reality, if Mercosur and its allies were to threaten to divest from the United Kingdom such as to cost more jobs here than there were people on the Falkland Islands, and there are fewer than three thousand people on the Falkland Islands, then Thatcher's and Nicholas Ridley's original scheme, for a transfer of sovereignty followed by a leaseback, would be a done deal.
"If the Falkland Islanders did not like it, then they could move over here and start paying the taxes that provided the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines.
"If the Falkland Islanders were anyone else, then the readers and writers of The Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph would regard them as an ungrateful nuisance.
"If the Falkland Islanders were any other colour, then the readers and writers of The Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph would regard them as an ungrateful nuisance. Hundreds of St Helenians now work on the Falklands, but you will never see them on any televisual depiction of the place. That is not an accident.
"The Falklands War has left us with the most expensive empire in history. The cost of defending the only part that requires to be defended is now greater than if all the remaining British Overseas Territories were to be declared independent with a permanent annual grant of one billion pounds apiece.
"Provided that rights of abode in this country could be retained for the tiny number of people involved, then that, which was suggested some years ago by Simon Jenkins, would not necessarily be such a bad idea. It would undeniably be far, far cheaper."
Perfect. Happy Christmas, Mr. Lindsay. 2016 could be the year when the people of Britain realise that we have our own right of self-determination, we pay the bills and we don't all look like the Falkland Islanders.
Those last two quoted paragraphs are brilliant to the point of beauty.
DeleteThey are like the Scots, convinced everyone in England was desperate for them to stay. Or the Northern Irish, convinced the mainland British would die for them. No the British would not die for the Falkland Islands, not twice. We wouldn't even lose a few thousand jobs to keep hold of them if that was the threat. Our right to self-determination, that has really got me thinking, has that. That is an idea whose time has come.
ReplyDeleteImportant point, that. Middle England don't even want to keep Scotland any more. They sure as hell don't care about Northern Ireland or the Falklands.
DeletePerhaps we should count ourselves fortunate that our future is determined by ourselves, and by the UN charter as it pertains to the rights of non-self-governing territories. It definitely isn't determined by Simon Jenkins, or by the simple-minded racists who read the Tory press.
Delete