A rather different referendum

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Cameron has been rather more unequivocal about the proposed referendum in the Falkland Islands than he has been in relation to Scotland.  It is, he says, entirely up to the people of those islands to decide their future, and he will respect their choice.  It’s probably easier to be clear when everyone knows in advance what the result will be.

The referendum might allow people to think that they’ve ‘won’ something in the short term, but in the longer term it will resolve little.  Argentina is not about to simply renounce its claim, and with the inevitability of further defence cuts in the future, the UK is not going to be for ever in a position to guarantee the status of the islands.    

Sooner or later, negotiation is inevitable.  Given recent history, that's a particularly difficult thing for a Conservative Prime Minister to face up to.  But burying his head in the sand won't help.

Many nationalists have tended to support the claims of Argentina.  I suspect that to be in minor part because of a romantic attachment to the Wladfa in Patagonia, but more generally because of a strong and natural anti-colonialist stance.  There’s nothing wrong with that, as far as it goes, but the history is complex, to say the least, and there’s more to the situation than simply British colonialism.  Support for Argentina’s claim is over-simplistic.

Argentinean claims to the island owe more to Spanish colonialism than they do to any historical relationship between Argentina itself and the Islands; the Islands were long disputed between the two major colonial powers and were uninhabited before the British and the Spanish took turns at attempting to colonise them.  And the desire to possess the Islands seems to be more to do with territorialism and economic resources than with freeing colonial possessions.

The days when territory and the people living on it could simply be transferred between two countries at the whim of those countries with no heed paid to the wishes of the people themselves are long gone, thankfully; but that leaves a problem.  However unrealistic for the long term is the idea that such far away islands can sensibly remain ‘British’, there seems little doubt that that is the preferred choice of the people themselves.

And however much we might feel that the UK should be divesting itself of its remaining imperial possessions, there is as big a problem in granting independence to people who don’t seem to want it as there is in trying simply to pass ownership to another state.  Nevertheless, it seems to me that Independence, backed by some sort of international guarantees and negotiated agreements with other parties, is the only logical long term solution.

In that context, touting the inevitable result of the referendum as a clear indication of the will of the people and encouraging them to think that no change is required, as Cameron seems to be doing, is likely only to increase tension and prolong the stand-off.