I really DGAS about the Islands but have to say we’re about to get back from Afganistan and Iraq thousands of troops with now’t to do (and we won’t use them to fix UK roads or infrastructure) so why not shuv’em down there?

Think it’s all a waste of money, not like we’ll ever utilise the Oil/Gas reserves or fishing come to that. And who are we actually protecting here, Penguins and a couple of hundred folks planted on the Islands to make them look “populated”

I’ll give £5.00 for them.. that’ll solve the posturing.

Enough Oil to get them out of economic sh**e really. It’s quite simple really. It has nothing to do with what they say.

I know that’s what it’s really about. But that aside, there’s not a huge amount of room to share sovereignty.

Anyone else reckon that she’s just seen some figures for the Argentine economy that would make George Osbourne look competent?

“Quick! We need a distraction! I know! We’ve not gobbed off about las Malvinas for a few months. Organise me a press conference, will you?”

Just a look at the map will tell you who has more rights to the Falkland Isles

I believe Spain say the same about Gibralter. But oddly enough, not about those islands they have off the coast of Morrocco and who’s name I can’t remember.
Also, if you follow this logic would you propose giving the channel islands to France or invading Ireland

The Channel Islands are nearer to France but they sit between France and England which is different to them being on the other side of the world .

If you follow your logic why did Britain let China take over the running of Hong Kong , perhaps you think we should have sent a task force round there to teach them a lesson .

Face it, the islanders see themselves as British. There endeth the argument until they see themselves as Argentinian. What is that woman’s problem with comprehending this?

could you remind me exactly when the UK gave them self determination and what the UN considers the Falklands to be and the rules of self determination for settled colonies [ you wont like it though]

PS they only because UK citizens in 1983 and we also listed them as a non self governing territory till roughly the same time as well – god we loved our people there didnt we and oh how we gave them self determination for we respect human rights- bit like we respected the self determination of the all Ireland vote we promised after WW1 – oh hold on those bastards voted against us so we best partition the country and claim the self determination of the Ulster plantation folk we put there to be loyal to us- lets get all jingoistic now folks and rattle those sabres about noble princiles we are upholding 😕

Like many places where we [and others] have taken territories we wont give them back [ whether we have a legitimate claim or not] and we will use all sorts of “noble” reasons to explain why a lump of rock on the other side of the world is ours.

Of course they want to remain British [ despite only recently being granted this right by us] as why settle a place if you dont put loyal subjects there ??- its their job to do this and the Loyalist in Ulster are still doing it some 400 years on GAWD bless em. Its not a good principle to use here as the Cornwall example will show.

Throw in some jingoism, attack those who disagree BOOOM we have a STW thread – you goaders sure miss them so much so that months on you are still mocking- its tragic.

re self determination – if a foreign force invaded Cornwall plonked a million folk there how much weight would you give to self determination of this population Zokes? What does the UN say

Enjoy your patriotism and defence for colonialist expansionist using noble terms that had no bearing on why it became “ours” and why we kept it.

I still don’t understand what she wants to negotiate about. The islanders consider themselves British, the UK government considers the islands to be British, the Argentinians consider them to be Argentinian.

Not a huge amount of middle ground for negotiating there.

Dual sovereignty would appear to be the middle ground there .

This all kicked off in the last few years when oil exploration started. Once it’s getting extracted your too late to cash in hence the ramping up (along with their own economic issues)

kimbers – Member

still im sure it rattles plenty of blazer wearing codgers enough that they have to rant about it to their long suffering wife from behind their copy of the telegraph over poached eggs and smoked salmon of a morning

(ive actually seen this happen except it was a H&S gone mad rant)

Someone in the family, was it?

At the end of the day the Argentinians know they can’t retake the Falklands by force.

So all this is just a bit of jingoistic posturing

Enjoy your patriotism and defence for colonialist expansionist using noble terms that had no bearing on why it became “ours” and why we kept it.

I agree with some of your sentiment JY but the thing is I don’t think Argentina really has a much better claim than we do. I suppose some kind of agreement to share resources could be a way forward.

Do a deal.
Falklands want to stay British. Scotland don’t.
Give them Scotland instead.

So all this is just a bit of jingoistic posturing

If the Falklands wasn’t there the Government would tell the people that Aliens are about to land/Brazil is threatening them/there are insurgents in the land..

Ramsey, I was just taking it to the logical extreem, not necessarily advocating an invasion of Ireland. Just saying that proximity is not the only deciding factor of soveinty.
(see Kalliningrad for a non-British example, that’s still Russian)
And Hong Kong was very different, we had agreed to return it and they didn’t invade it. And there’s no oil there.
.
Also, as someone alluded to above, if a territory is colonised so that the colonisers become the majority population should they have a say in the running of the place? Am I talking about the million foreigners in Cornwall Junkyard refers to? Or the population Britain sent to the Falklands? Or most of the population of Argentina who are of Spanish descent? Pots and kettles.

IT was an uninhabited rock originally GRum so we can argue no one has claim – I would of course argue no one has the right to ownership of land

However its hard to see how we came to have an island on the other side of the world and it not be colonial expansion.

We can debate distance to territory [ loads of anomalies as we have done it before]. We can all agree its some distance from our territorial waters of the UK. Dont think we would be giving up on our claim were the situation reversed and the same sabre rattlers defending us would be the irrate Argentinians still “going on about it and never learning”.

Odd how the two most vociferous groups on both sides are the most alike in outlook- says something about humanity and loving your country.

TBH if there was no oil gas or minerals and they had racked up a huge bill with some undesirables I can see the arguments being reversed 🙂

The islanders should ask the Argentinians if they want to become part of The Falklands…

TBH if there was no oil gas or minerals and they had racked up a huge bill with some undesirables I can see the arguments being reversed

The oil and gas argument is often touted but judging by the experience of The Falkland Oil and Gas Company there may not be as much and it may not be as easy to extract as they would have you believe .

Enjoy your patriotism and defence for colonialist expansionist using noble terms

sorry jy are you addressing that towards zokes or cristina fernandez de kirchner ?

what puzzles me is that normally rational people get so consumed by post colonial guilt over the falklands that they lose sight of the fact that argentina are no less colonialists in all of this then the uk.

let the penguins have them back.

You can argue WHY it’s ours all you want but it currently has British sovereignty. We also hang onto Gibraltar. Spain hangs onto the Canaries, Ceuta and Melilla and even “fought” with Morocco over Perejil Island in 2002.

Even better, Argentina has similar island enclaves; Isla Martín García (in Uruguayan territorial waters) in the Río de la Plata plus Apipé and Entre Ríos (Paraguayan territorial waters) and a few other smaller ones. Surely they should be handing these back before moaning about the Falklands?

There’s literally hundreds of these little anomalies scattered around the world, yet most people just get on with it.

Give it to the penguins.
And the sheep.
Then let them fight it out.

We could make a fortune selling arms to both sides.

Argentina would be in charge now if they hadn’t invaded.
We were just writing out the gift tag and looking for the Sellotape before they landed last time.
But they so wanted to look tough and blew it.

If you follow your logic why did Britain let China take over the running of Hong Kong , perhaps you think we should have sent a task force round there to teach them a lesson .

Something to do with a lease running out I think.

sorry jy are you addressing that towards zokes or cristina fernandez de kirchner ?

Have a wild stab in the dark 😉

Its a reasonable point you make but we just get tied up in anomalies – we can go on increasing the distance from the mainland till we agree its suddenly becomes a colony

Fact remains its on the other side of the world and it is part of our former Empire. Their geographical claim is thousand of miles better than ours = of course anomalies exist – do you think we would swap them the Channel Isles or give them Anglesey?

Ps nice dig

normally rational people get so consumed by post colonial guilt over the falklands

Yes considering slavery and subjugation we did this is what I feel most guilt about when I am hand wringing etc 😛

Sadly, Argentina cannot be relied on for too many things (wine, beef, beautiful people, scenery, economic case studies * apart) but come the 3 January, they can be relied on to stimulate a classic STW thread. How many pages this time – at least an 8!

* at least Greece can learn the lessons from Argentina of how domestic politicians and society, multi-national organisations and international finance can combine to screw a society for well over a century. Such a waste and a pity!

On top of the usual reasons for the 3/1 annual sabre rattling, I am sure CK also resents that the international spotlight in 2012 shifted N of Brazil to Mexico rather than South.

if a foreign force invaded Cornwall plonked a million folk there how much weight would you give to self determination of this population Zokes?

Y’see, that’s the issue. The Falklands weren’t taken by force. Straw man.

(Besides which, I know a number of Cornish who would happily cede from the Crown)

jy, it wasn’t meant as a dig.

there are a million and one reasons to feel bad about the british empire and i know of none to feel good about, however the horrors of the british empire and the situation in the falklands are not comparable.

Nice deflection there Zokes , refusal to address the point and an attempt to discuss whether the Falklands were taken by force – they were over and over again by both sides till we won and settled it with our folk]:roll:

You are better than this and you do have the intellectual capability to discuss 🙄

Its a straw man to claim I said that the Cornish thought example was just like the Falklands.

Do you think self determinism is a fine principle to apply in that scenario?

Once we accept, as we must surely do, that it is not always an ok principle we can debate hit in relation to the Falklands. Given when we gave them this right an d the UK citizenship i look forward to your next deflected answer

Poor Zokes, really poor.
I am genuinely disappointed 😳
People have opinions there are good points to both sides of the argument no point just putting your head in the sands when someone makes one that counters you view.

EDIT:

jy, it wasn’t meant as a dig.

I did not take it as one ,my reply was meant to be a humorous [ if slightly serious one]

Fernández de Kirchner’s been adulated in the past with comparisons to Evita, the defender of the working classes in the 40’s – 50‘s, however in recent months the masses are now showing widespread discontent with general strikes and uprisings in response to a worsening economy with stubbornly high inflation. Perhaps this explains the timing of her ‘open letter’. CFdK’s continued flare-ups are a barometer of her difficulties in dealing with problems at home. They’re nothing more than a cynical and unsophisticated attempt to curry favour by stirring the nationalistic feelings of the Argentine electorate.

There’s a huge amount of obfuscation going on in your posts JY.

On the one hand, the Falklands were taken without force nearly 200 years ago, thus making it long since anyone actually affected by their colonisation would care. On the other, you’re hypothetically plonking 1m people in a place currently occupied by over 500,000 people. Slightly different.

So, straw men aside, no, I don’t see how we can agree on the fact that the principal of self determination of a people is not always sacrosanct.

There may be a just argument as to whether or not the Falkland Islanders constitute a ‘people’, but as the vast majority of them were born there, I reckon that’s as good an argument as any other metric.

Do we really believe in self determination?

I’m no expert on the history of an Ireland but surely the majority of Irish wanted their Island independent.

If the Cornish want to be independent would we let them.

We seem to be eventully stumbling towards an independence vote for Scotland. If we care what the locals think why didn’t Scotland get an independence vote in the 1980s or 1960s.

What happaems of one of Britains ethnic communities suddenly says the majority of people in this town have their ethinic origins in Country X, so we would like the sovereignty of this town handed over to that country. Would we all be saying well self determination thats the most important thing

so as long as you invade and settle [ anywhere not just the Falklands Isles]for long enough then self determination is still sacrosanct[ why did it take us so long to give it to them then ?] and how this situation came to be is irrelevant- do I really need to explain why that is not a sound principle for all scenarios? REALLY?

Israel should invade Palestine[ some more ] and then have a vote eh and it will all be all right I assume by that “metric” and Job done eh

Yah for self determination
Are you campaigning for respect for the All Ireland vote for a unified Ireland – is the UK government?

The principle you deem sacrosanct is not universally applied by our govt and our colonies.

It is obvious a planted population will be loyal but it is not obvious that this self determination is a just “metric” in all scenarios.

Hence I keep giving you examples, to ignore, where it would not be just.

Clearly if we don’t believe in self determination then we should just hand the Falklands back to the original natives.

they are all dead [ and not human]

So what alternative to self-determination do you suggest in that case?

The ‘who did it belong to originally’ argument is ridiculous reductionism. If that were to be taken forward we’d have whole nations displaced and millions of peoples stateless! Lets just be sensible and deal with the here and now … as grum said earlier, maybe look at mutually productive compromises.

they are all dead [ and not human]

might as well let them stay in the hands of the current residents then, eh?

It’s about the 300 million barrels under there that Rockhopper have found. I expect when it all quiets down we’ll hear of new finds from Falkland Oil and Gas too. They’ve given up on one well but there are several other sites.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/oct/19/falklands-start-producing-oil-2017-rockhopper

oh they you ask me all the questions but answer none game

Tempting 😉
Nah You first.

Like all the problems of Imperialism be it N Ireland, Taiwan, Israel etc there is no simple solution

It is clear that the islanders want to remain so we wont be giving them up
its clear that the argentinians wont stop asking /demanding.

I ageee with a Grum so bi partisan arrangement is what is required in all these situations and some establishment of common ground between the “enemies”
Of course I have no idea what this and doubt anyone else does.

re self determination – do we allow Argentinians to live there Could they just settle it more than us k and have a vote – would seem to make all sides happy 😉

Zokes if you want a reply explain sacrosanct self determination in the examples given – really I did expect better of you never had you down for this type of poster 🙄

really I did expect better of you never had you down for this type of poster

The passive-aggressive ad-hom?

who ? you or me 😕

No i respect Zokes and he usually discusses the issues and the points made – I did not expect him to not discuss them and ignore any points that counter his view- not least hen he also mocks TJ for this- he is one step away from saying he has answered the question 😀

he says it is sacrosanct so it is not unreasonable to expect him to explain why in the cases cited it would apply after all its sacrosanct so should be easy.

IMHO its obvious its not but I thought he would have at least accepted this point or argued his case.

For clarity it is not meant to be an ad hom but i can see why it could be taken as such

re self determination – do we allow Argentinians to live there Could they just settle it more than us k and have a vote – would seem to make all sides happy

I believe there is something called immigration control. Pretty much the same way you or I couldn’t just start living in Argentina and colonise it. It appears that there wasn’t effective immigration control on the islands back in the 1800s

oh they you ask me all the questions but answer none game

Actually, my question about just leaving it with the current inhabitants was sort of my OP, hence the title and content.

And please don’t stoop the the ad-hominem. This thread’s much more peaceful thanks to the notable absence of a few.