Falkland Islanders have told new Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn “We’re British… don’t even think about it.” Corbyn is well known for his opposition to the Falkland War, which took place in 1982, and his proposal to install a joint administration alongside Argentina on the island.
On Saturday Corbyn swept to victory in the Labour leadership bid, taking 59 per cent of the vote on the first round. Corbyn has stated that he is open to “dialogue” on the question of ownership of the Falkland Island’s with Argentina. Consequently his victory was met with triumph by Argentinian representatives, including the president.
But Falkland Islanders themselves are rather cooler on his victory.
Hours after his victory was announced, Falkland Islanders took to Twitter to post Corbyn a “quick reminder: We’re a British Overseas Territory. Don’t even think about it. Cheers.” The tweet has been retweeted hundreds of times.
They followed the tweet up with a request that Corbyn “please hurry up and clarify [his] Falklands stance”, adding “Our penguins are rioting down here.”
Hugo Swire MP, Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has offered Corybn some advice on the matter, tweeting “Suggest #JeremyCorbyn consults #Falkand Islanders themselves before any further pledges to negotiate away their right to self-determination.” “
Argentina’s President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner released a buoyant statement on Corbyn’s leadership, calling his victory a “triumph of hope”. She continued: “It is also a triumph for those who advocate for peace and the peaceful resolution of conflicts.
“Jeremy Corbyn is a great friend of Latin America and shares, in solidarity, our demands for equality and political sovereignty.”
Argentina’s ambassador to the UK Alicia Castro also met the news joyfully, claiming “he in one of ‘our’s”.
Illustrating her point she continued: “There are those who do not want to see themselves identified with a colonialist policy, the environmentalists who know that oil exploration in the islands without infrastructure and links with the continent could cause an ecological disaster, those who – in the midst of an economic crisis which cuts back the budget for health, education, housing and has a million people eating in food banks – do not want to see their taxes invested in maintaining an expensive military base in remote islands for the alleged purpose of stopping an invasion that will never happen.
“Today we see that those positions, which are precisely the ones that Jeremy Corbyn holds, have a broad consensus.”
Corbyn may hold a broad consensus within the Labour party, but it remains to be seen how widely beyond the party that consensus spreads. It is unlikely to win him much support in the Falklands, where 99.8 per cent of Islanders voted in favour of remaining a British Overseas Territory in March 2013. Just three people voted against.
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