It appears to be the 1980's again.

We haven’t all gone back in time to the 1980s again have we? I mean there hasn’t been a time storm of some sort has there? I ask this because on top of the financial crisis, royal weddings and an (unpopular) Conservative government, we’re yet again getting into an argument with Argentina over the Falkland Islands.

This time however the fight is not going to be a physical one. This may have something to do with the fact that as things stand now the Argentinean army could apparently just about hold off Paraguay for just over a day. At which point it would be invaded, by Paraguay. So this time the Argentinean President Cristina Kirchner is attempting to wrest control of the Falklands via stealth and politics. She has ordered a blockade of all ships flying a British flag and has made speeches in front of the UN, presumably hoping that sooner or later we’ll just get fed up and cede control of the Falklands to Argentina in the hope that they will then stop going on about the issue. .

But here is the major sticking point. Argentina keeps talking about how they are keen to “negotiate” an agreement with the British government. However the two governments have a different understanding of the purpose of such negotiation. For the Argentineans the issue is how Argentinean sovereignty over the islands can be achieved. As they see it, the islands are part of their continental shelf and were stolen from them by the British in 1834. For the British the issue is how an agreement about the future of the islands can be achieved that respects the fact that the inhabitants of the Falkland Islands, many of whose families have lived on the islands for six or seven generations, wish to remain subjects of the British crown rather than be ruled by Argentina.

The Argentineans, it seems, don’t care about the people who actually live on the Falklands. In a guest column written for the I on Thursday the Argentinean Ambassador to the UK, said that the UK could not “shield behind the so-called self-determination of the islanders when no such [UN] resolution has recognised such a right.”  The crux of her argument is that as the Falkland Islanders are not the original inhabitants of the islands, but rather the remnants of a colonial take over, they do not have the right to say who they wish to be governed by. Well we would ask the original inhabitants. But they’ve been dead for several hundred years. Of course, Argentina is not exactly the country to make noises about colonial hangovers seeing as their whole nation is a hangover from the Spanish governance of South America.

At the thirtieth anniversary of the end of the Falklands conflict, the Prime Minister promised that the UK would stand by the Falklands what ever happened. I don’t think anything will happen. However at the same time, I don’t believe the Argentinean Government is going to back down any time soon as the current situation is a political gold mine for them. Continuous rhetoric about “reclaiming Argentinean territory” earns President Kirchner a lot of support from the electorate, while she knows that she will never actually have to do anything except keep talking about it. A win-win situation for any politician.