There are today about 1,300 locally born inhabitants still on the islands.12 They call themselves ‘Kelpers’ after the giant Kelp seaweed of the South Atlantic. It is not hard to detect a note of stoical disparagement of their own conditions in the term. Their society could only have improved with the ‘pampering’, stability and trade that would have accompanied the Argentinian flag. The Kelpers would have joined the privileged Anglo-Argentine community, not the ‘disappeared ones’, and could have retained all their rights as British subjects except for their subjugation to the House of Commons, had not that chamber decided, in its own egocentric interests, to go to war for the Falklands.
This applies with a special vengeance to Margaret Thatcher perhaps, but it also goes for the Labour leadership, which endorsed the need to ‘liberate’ the Falklands and restore freedom to the islands. Labour did support the deployment of the Task Force, but even then—as we are about to witness—it declined to make any distinction between the lives of the people and sovereignty over the territory. It thus reneged on its own approach to the issue when in office. Labour went out of its way to dismiss the offers of the Junta and to secure the fatal elision of land and inhabitants that made the struggle over the Falklands a primitive clash of national sovereignty between Britain and Argentina.
The fateful debate was opened by Thatcher. These were her first words:
The House meets this Saturday to respond to a situation of great gravity. We are here because, for the first time for many years, British sovereign territory has been invaded by a foreign power.13
After describing the first information she had received, she went on:
I am sure that the whole House will join me in condemning totally this unprovoked aggression by the Government of Argentina against British territory. (Honourable Members: ‘Hear, hear’.) It has not a shred of justification, and not a scrap of legality.
She gave more details of takeover, then stated:
I must tell the House that the Falkland Islands and their dependencies remain British territory. No aggression and no invasion can alter that simple fact. It is the Government’s objective to see that the islands are freed from occupation and are returned to British administration at the earliest possible moment.
Thus the entire initial position taken by the Prime Minister was concerned with the issue of territorial sovereignty, not the islanders. There can be little doubt that this was a true expression of her feelings. What had been usurped for her was something that belonged to Britain. This was the primary, the national, fact. She then went on to deal with the secondary issue:
Argentina has, of course, long disputed British sovereignty over the islands. We have absolutely no doubt about our sovereignty, which has been continuous since 1833. Nor have we any doubt about the unequivocal wishes of the Falkland Islanders, who are British in stock and tradition, and they wish to remain British in allegiance. We cannot allow the democratic rights of the islanders to be denied by the territorial ambitions of Argentina.
Two things are significant about this statement. First, as we have seen, there was in fact a consistent record of official British attempts in recent times to negotiate away sovereignty. Second, one can observe the wilful fashion in which the Prime Minister elided the territorial question with the democratic rights of the islanders. Consider, for instance, their ‘British tradition’, which never gave them a vote in the election of their own Governor or conferred UK citizenship. Thatcher demagogically made no attempt to distinguish the Kelpers’ real traditions so as to seek their preservation; instead, she made the appointment from London of their local ruler the defining and definitive attribute of their way of life. Moreover, she proceeded to claim:
Over the past 15 years, successive British Governments have held a series of meetings with the Argentine Government to discuss the dispute. In many of these meetings elected representatives of the islanders have taken part. We have always made it clear that their wishes were paramount and that there would be no change in sovereignty without their consent and without the wishes of the House.
This statement seems to have been false. To have held to it would have been the equivalent of the British Government asserting eternal sovereignty. And Thatcher was soon to back away from the ‘paramountcy’ of the islanders’ desires during the period of diplomatic manoeuvering, only to reinstate it as a rhetorical imperative on the eve of victory. The important thing to note, therefore, is the use being made of the ‘wishes’ of the islanders, to justify London’s claims.
Thatcher next tried to explain why no concrete steps had been taken to prevent an Argentinian take-over which had been forewarned weeks, if not months in advance. She was uncomfortably aware that in 1977 Callaghan had quietly dispatched a nuclear submarine and two frigates to the South Atlantic in a successful gamble to force the Junta back to the negotiating table after intelligence reports of a possible attack. This precedent placed Thatcher in a difficult partisan position and provided one of the key tensions of the debate. Her political image had been constructed around the projection of determination, resolution and iron fidelity to national defence—yet here the stereotypes were reversed. It was the ex-Labour Government, whose members were now sitting opposite, which could claim to have achieved all these things where she had failed. They had acted where she had deserted ‘kith and kin’. Indeed, how could the embattled Labour front-bench, desperate for favourable publicity, possibly refrain from such an accusation when it caused Thatcher such pain?
The prospect was intolerable. Her reaction was to strike back and not only at Argentina. First she dredged up the case of South Thule. If you think that the Falklands are remote, try to find South Thule on the map. It is an uninhabitable dot close to the Antarctic below South Georgia. Thatcher claimed that it had been ‘occupied’ by Argentina in 1976 but that the traitors in the Labour Party did not even tell the House about this appalling transgression until 1978 (Buenos Aires had established a ‘scientific’ post there). She was interrupted by a questioner: surely South Thule was ‘a piece of rock’, there was ‘a whole world of difference’ between it and the ‘imprisonment of 1,800 people’ by Argentina. Not at all, answered Thatcher. ‘We are talking about the sovereignty of British territory—which was infringed in 1976’. Although her efforts at baiting the opposition did not go down well in the chamber, the point was quite logical. It demonstrated the priorities to which she was attached. The sovereign territory might have well been no more than a lump knee-deep in bird droppings, all the same it was our land. A woman who puts millions out of work has no feeling for the life people lead. Rather, it is their abstract ‘virtues’ which stir her heart, as she made clear in her final sentences:
The people of the Falkland Islands, like the people of the United Kingdom, are an island race. Their way of life is British; their allegiance is to the Crown. They are few in number but they have the right to live in peace, to choose their way of life, and to determine their own allegiance. Their way of life is British; their allegiance is to the Crown. It is the wish of the British people and the duty of Her Majesty’s Government to do everything that we can to uphold that right. That will be our hope and our endeavour and, I believe, the resolve of every Member of the House.
There is no such thing as ‘an island race’ and it is most unlikely that Thatcher would speak in such laudatory tones about the Maltese or the Filipinos. But the thing to observe is the way the wishes of ‘the people’ have been used, by deliberate confusion, to stand in for the wishes of the Government in London. The right to live in peace, the right to choose one’s own way of life, these are powerful and important—they refer to tranquillity, security, education, religion, language and jobs. The right to determine one’s ‘allegiance’ is slightly different. (It has an odd, rather feudal ring, partly because it is not, ‘the right of self-determination’, i.e. statehood). To go on to say, ‘Their way of life is British, their allegiance is to the Crown’, is to fuse the attributes of their actual community existence wi
th the Union Jack above their heads. It is to ignore, wilfully and deliberately, the possibility of distinguishing these two aspects, a practical possibility in this case because of the tiny numbers involved. When Thatcher stated that she already believed it to be the resolve of every member to give back to the Falklanders their ‘rights’, she was sending the hurricane of war to defend their ‘right to live in peace’. It was not their lives she sought to defend, it was rather British sovereignty over them, and more generally ‘Britishness’ itself.
Michael Foot then rose and immediately made it clear in what way for Labour it was people not territory that mattered:
The rights and the circumstances of the people in the Falkland Islands must be uppermost in our minds. There is no question in the Falkland Islands of any colonial dependence or anything of the sort. It is a question of people who wish to be associated with this country [read: ruled by it] and who have built their whole lives on the basis of association with this country. We have a moral duty, a political duty and every other kind of duty [read: military] to ensure that that is sustained.
Here again it is possible to see how the islanders’ lives were inextricably conflated with British rule over them, only this time under a cloud of moral purity. How damaging this stance was not only for Britain but for the islanders, was revealed in Foot’s subsequent words:
The people of the Falkland Islands have the absolute right to look to us at this moment of their desperate plight, just as they have looked to us over the past 150 years. They are faced with an act of naked, unqualified aggression, carried out in the most shameful and disreputable circumstances. Any guarantee from this invading force is utterly worthless—as worthless as any of the guarantees that are given by this same Argentine Junta to its own people.
Note Foot’s sweep as a historian, at home with the previous century-and-a-half in the most detailed way and also his characterization of ‘unqualified aggression’. What he would have said if the Argentine forces had killed anyone can hardly be imagined. But what is most interesting here was his dismissal of the worth of any guarantees. This was his response to the offer made by Galtieri to let the Falklanders keep their own way of life (just as have many Welsh communities in Patagonia—as successfully, it could be added, as in many parts of Wales). Foot confused a ‘guarantee’ with a mere verbal promise, a conflation in which mental disorganization and deliberate misinterpretation seem to have been combined. Certainly to have taken the mere word of the Junta on trust would have been craven, but a ‘guarantee’ could mean international invigilation and enforcement. Here, perhaps, was a means of securing the islanders’ way of life, and the withdrawal of Argentinian troops, and even a lucrative financial settlement. But—and this is the all-important point—Foot would not even allow such an option to be considered, let alone explored. Despite the lofty calibre of his words, he was no more concerned than Thatcher with the actual human lives involved. His interest was in a greater cause:
[to] uphold the rights of our country throughout the world, and the claim of our country to be a defender of people’s freedom throughout the world, particularly those who look to us for special protection, as do the people in the Falkland Islands. (My emphasis.)
Foot then examined the conduct of the Thatcher Government, pointedly contrasting its lack of foresight with Labour’s prescience in 1977. This led him to the conclusion already quoted, that the Tories had ‘betrayed’ the islanders and now needed to ‘prove by deeds’ that they could make good their record. Because, Foot stressed, it was necessary after all to qualify our primary concern with the Falklanders themselves:
Even though the position and the circumstances of the people who live in the Falkland Islands are uppermost in our minds—it would be outrageous if that were not the case—there is the longer term interest to ensure that foul and brutal aggression does not succeed in the world. If it does, there will be a danger not merely to the Falkland Islands, but to people all over this dangerous planet. (My emphasis.)
Now it is perfectly clear that as a result of the Falklands’ expedition, small nations and good causes will not sleep easier in the world. How could those who desire a more just and less alarming planet wish more power to the likes of Margaret Thatcher? So far as Britain’s ‘particular’ interests are concerned, as expressed by those who look to it for protection, Belize and British Guyana have been cited. The latter has a powerful neighbour, Venezuela, which claims a substantial part of its territory. Will the British response to the Falklands’ seizure deter Venezuela more than would have an extended diplomatic campaign to ensure the community rights of the Kelpers? On the contrary. For instead of arming the politicians in Caracas with a powerful case to rein in their military, British reaction in the South Atlantic is just as likely to ensure an increase in the Venezuelan military budget. Exocet missiles and submarines will be added at great expense, funded by oil revenues. The greater the superiority achieved, the more likely it becomes that it will be used. This is so obvious that Michael Foot’s motivation can hardly have been a real desire to ensure more peaceful relations internationally. But nor is it the case that he had radically changed his attitudes from the man who campaigned for British unilateral nuclear disarmament during the 1950s. There is an underlying continuity of attitude between the strand of opinion he belonged to then and his position on the Falklands crisis: the tradition of British liberalism.
It has long been remarked that the first CND campaign (1957-63) saw a renewal of the British liberal tradition of protest, that goes back to opposition to the slave trade. Humanitarian antagonism to the unnecessary and inhuman excesses of the world was the characteristic feature of this stance. It never challenged the system which produced such horrors and rather avoided any overall, systematic theory, for fear of dogmatism and ideological excess on its own part. Michael Foot is a contemporary embodiment of this tradition and exemplifies one of its most unpleasant aspects: its moral imperialism. For behind the presumption that a British voice must speak out against violations of humanity elsewhere (which is welcome), lies the assertion that the Anglo-Saxon accent can and should arbitrate across all frontiers. The globalism of the liberal conscience in this case is not a true internationalism. Despite its attractive aspects, its core is a presumption of national superiority. This was captured in the first CND campaign by one of the arguments for unilateralism: it would ‘set an example for the world’. Britain would ‘lead the way by its behaviour’. While a strand of English liberal moralism, then, was truly and properly appalled at the threat of mankind’s absolute destruction in a nuclear exchange—and so protested against the infamous prospect of our genocide—another strand expressed the specific sense of national impotence. No longer a great power, subject to the fateful decisions of Washington and Moscow, Britain which had supposedly ‘won the war’ found it had lost any power to arbitrate the peace. The fate of the world was slipping inexorably from London’s hands. Only a magnificent gesture, while some power to deflect events remained, could ensure a permanent legacy of influence.
Foot’s sentiments over the Falklands are an archetypal expression of this liberal imperialism. The people are ‘uppermost’ in his mind, so far ‘up’ as to be out of sight, it transpires, while it is the ‘longer-term’ question that predominates. ‘Foul and brutal aggression’, that led to no loss of life amongst those aggressed, requires that the planet itself be policed against further danger. This is often the rallying cry of the metropolis as it seeks to maintain a world order. American officials justified their intervention in Vietnam on the same grounds; was not the ‘domino theory’ merely a more regional specification of the dangers of ‘global example’ espoused by Foot?14
How did Foot defend himself, when he came under criticism? In response to an open letter from Anthony Arblaster in Tribune, Foot argued that he had been assailed without any mention of the United Nations.15 Its Charter is the ‘centrepiece’ of Labour’s case, he wrote. ‘Everything I have said has been governed by Labour’s allegi
ance to the Charter.’ The ‘future prospects for peace throughout the world’ as well as ‘Labour’s reputation’, depended upon the Party honouring its international responsibility to the UN. In his view, the difference between the Suez and Falklands crises is that in the Falklands, Britain has acted ‘in conformity with our United Nations obligations’. The argument is spurious. International opinion almost uniformly regards the squabble between the UK and Argentina as about national pride, while allegiance to the UN does not imply that Britain had to counter-attack the Junta’s forces. Resolution 502 which called for the immediate withdrawal of Argentine forces also called on both sides to resolve their differences diplomatically and demanded ‘an immediate cessation of hostilities’. Furthermore Article 51 hardly extends the right of self-defence to non-national, dependent territories 7,000 miles away, whose sovereignty has already been placed on the negotiating table by the ‘defending’ country.16
Perhaps because he sensed the weakness of his appeal to transnational legalism, Foot concluded his defence by tarnishing his once notable anti-fascist record. He drew a parallel with the Spanish Civil War. Thatcher, it seems, was leading the Republican side against a Franco-like invasion. Just as Tribune had done nothing to give aid and comfort to Franco in the thirties, so it should now abominate any support for General Galtieri, instead of demanding the recall of the Task Force. (Funny that Labour had sold many arms to the Argentine Junta.) Eric Heffer, an ambitious Labour leftist, equally endorsed Thatcher’s response because, ‘The Labour Party cannot agree to a bunch of fascist military thugs being allowed to do just what they like’. Nobody had suggested that they should. Just as Galtieri’s claim that he is dedicated to the struggle against colonialism is nothing more than the mirror image in hypocrisy to Thatcher’s assertion that she must defend the Falklanders’ ‘right to self-determination’, so Foot’s or Heffer’s declaration that the Falklands War is a struggle against fascism also twins the Junta’s demagogy.
Iron Britannia Page 8
