Margaret Thatcher is dead

[Coito ergo sum]

I was against the war at the time and I still am. It was driven as much by political expediency as by patriotism or any real desire to assist the islanders. Had Galtieri waited a few months, Thatcher would have been ousted in the general election and things would have proceeded very differently.

How so? Do you think that any British Prime Minister can tolerate British citizens being attacked on British soil, and having that British soil "conquered" by another nation?

Which British leader would have let the Islands go to Artgentina?

I can see Britain letting the islands go, but if the islanders wanted to leave or if the British themselves decided to cut it loose. I cannot see Britain, no matter who the ruling party is, allowing another nation to rape it in the ass, though.

"Driven by" -- what do you mean? The Brits started it? How do you get around the fact that the Argentinians actually invaded. There was some intelligence that the Argies might have been up to something at the time, but it was the Islanders that notified the British government that the Argies had actually done it.

[aspire1670]

I was against the war at the time and I still am. It was driven as much by political expediency as by patriotism or any real desire to assist the islanders. Had Galtieri waited a few months, Thatcher would have been ousted in the general election and things would have proceeded very differently.

How so? Do you think that any British Prime Minister can tolerate British citizens being attacked on British soil, and having that British soil "conquered" by another nation?

Which British leader would have let the Islands go to Artgentina?.

Well, as Falkland Islanders were NOT British citizens and the Falkland Islands were not British soil at the time of the Argentine invasion your questions are moot. And as to your second question I direct you to consider Thatcher's reaction to the American invasion of Grenada.

[Rum]

Well they actually are British citizens now. An Act of Parliament made that so in 1983, shortly after the war. Kind of opportunistic really.

[cronus]

For once though Crumple came through...Rum?

[klr]

For once though Crumple came through...Rum?

If you wait long enough, most predictions will come through. 100% of them when they involve death. Of humans.

[mistermack]

Don't see the big distinction. They were British subjects, living in a British Dependent Territory.
The Important word is British.

I think Labour WOULD have let them go. I think Neil Kinnock was leader at the time. ( I seem to remember him having to apologise for a comment of soldiers leaving their "guts" on a battlefield, when someone said it took guts to take the Falklands back. That twat would never have took them back. He would have just tried to paint surrendering the Falklands as a wise diplomatic "victory".

I do blame Thatcher for not making it clear that the UK would fight to keep the Islands.
The Argies only invaded because they thought that we wouldn't fight. That was HER fault.
They were warned by members of the Royal Navey that Argentina were likely to invade, and they ignored it.
And they did nothing when Argentina put a base on the Sandwich Islands. What sort of message was that?

[cronus]

For once though Crumple came through...Rum?

If you wait long enough, most predictions will come through. 100% of them when they involve death. Of humans.

Yes, that is why Thatcher dying is a relief. Proves she was human afterall.

[Coito ergo sum]

I was against the war at the time and I still am. It was driven as much by political expediency as by patriotism or any real desire to assist the islanders. Had Galtieri waited a few months, Thatcher would have been ousted in the general election and things would have proceeded very differently.

How so? Do you think that any British Prime Minister can tolerate British citizens being attacked on British soil, and having that British soil "conquered" by another nation?

Which British leader would have let the Islands go to Artgentina?.

Well, as Falkland Islanders were NOT British citizens and the Falkland Islands were not British soil at the time of the Argentine invasion your questions are moot. And as to your second question I direct you to consider Thatcher's reaction to the American invasion of Grenada.

The Brits announced their position that the islanders have a "right to self determination, including their right to remain British if that is their wish," since the Falklands are a British Overseas Territory. If they are allowed to "remain" British, they must have been British. I doubt their Britishness arose only in the past 30 years.

I thought that in 1982, the Falkland Islands were basically British dependent territories. In the 1800s, the population of the Fallklands were British. In the 1890s it was a British "colony." How did the situation change since then?

And let's look at Argentina's bullshit claim - In the UN in the 1960s, Argentina based its claim to the Falklands on papal bulls of 1493 modified by the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), by which Spain and Portugal had divided the New World between themselves; on succession from Spain; on the islands' proximity to South America; and on the need to end a colonial situation. So -- to end British colonialism, Argentina based its claim on Portuguese and Spanish colonialism, dividing the world among themselves.

Britain based its claim on its "open, continuous, effective possession, occupation, and administration" of the islands since 1833 and its determination to grant the Falklanders self-determination as recognized in the United Nations Charter. Britain asserted that, far from ending a colonial situation, Argentine rule and control of the lives of the Falklanders against their will would, in fact, create one.

Isn't Britain correct?

[Coito ergo sum]

Well they actually are British citizens now. An Act of Parliament made that so in 1983, shortly after the war. Kind of opportunistic really.

But they were British people that have made up the bulk of the population since like 1833, and they were a British colony beginning in the 1890s -- what were they called pre-1983? British dependent territory or something like that? Didn't they acknowledge the queen and all that? It was part of the UK wasn't it?

[Rum]

Expediency as ever wins the day. A great many Hong Kong Chinese wanted to be 'British' when the takeover loomed prior to 1998. It would have been wildly unrealistic to suddenly add 5 or 6 million British citizens to our potential population.

[cronus]

Expediency as ever wins the day. A great many Hong Kong Chinese wanted to be 'British' when the takeover loomed prior to 1998. It would have been wildly unrealistic to suddenly add 5 or 6 million British citizens to our potential population.

Can't add supersmart East Asians but OK to add supercriminal East Europeans.

[Coito ergo sum]

Expediency as ever wins the day. A great many Hong Kong Chinese wanted to be 'British' when the takeover loomed prior to 1998. It would have been wildly unrealistic to suddenly add 5 or 6 million British citizens to our potential population.

Perhaps, but the issue with the Falklands is that the people that live there are ethnically British. They want to be British. And, the UK has owned the islands since before there ever was an Argentina.

Argentina claims that colonials Spain was the benefactor of a "papal bull" that divided much of the world between Spain and Portugal, and since Argentina broke free from Spain, legally the Falklands should be Argentinian. I guess Brazil, also in the vicinity, loses out because the Falkands weren't in the Portuguese half. Query, can Uruguay make a similar claim? It's also near there, and Uruguay is Spanish, so can't they rely on the Papal Bull too?

[Warren Dew]

Expediency as ever wins the day. A great many Hong Kong Chinese wanted to be 'British' when the takeover loomed prior to 1998. It would have been wildly unrealistic to suddenly add 5 or 6 million British citizens to our potential population.

The problem there was that the New Territories were never British land - they were on a 100 year lease, which was expiring. Without the New Territories, Hong Kong would have had to have been largely abandoned.

For that matter, Hong Kong itself was technically on a lease as well.

[Rum]

Expediency as ever wins the day. A great many Hong Kong Chinese wanted to be 'British' when the takeover loomed prior to 1998. It would have been wildly unrealistic to suddenly add 5 or 6 million British citizens to our potential population.

The problem there was that the New Territories were never British land - they were on a 100 year lease, which was expiring. Without the New Territories, Hong Kong would have had to have been largely abandoned.

For that matter, Hong Kong itself was technically on a lease as well.

Like I said - expediency. I lived there for many years and the idea that HK without the NT could have been viable without a more or less non-existent and porous frontier it would have been simply unworkable. Still many HK Chinese were pretty worried about their fate when the mainland took over and petitioned pretty strenuously for at least some UK citizens' rights - which were not really forthcoming.

Patten was in my view, the hero of the time (he was the last governor for those who don't know). He hammered out the 'one nation, two systems' deal with determination and very much with the welfare of local people in mind.

[Dries van Tonder]

In a South African newspaper today: "Margeret Thatcher oorlede: Brittanje in rou." Translation: "Margeret Thatcher deceased: Britain in mourning."

And thought, WTF? Clearly, they don't know half of it.

Most white South Africans from that era still revere her as an icon. FFS!