Falkland Islands

David Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Guy Opperman]

It is a brave man who tells the colonel whether troops were good or indifferent at a particular time, and I bow to my hon. Friend’s greater knowledge.

Thomas Mann, however, was right when he said:

“War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.”

Among the almost 3,000 inhabitants of the Falklands, there is an overwhelming desire to remain a British overseas territory. It is not up to Great Britain to decide on the fate of the Falkland Islanders; it is their own right to decide where their sovereignty lies, and that will not change.

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

After all that has gone on in our recent history, does my hon. Friend agree that it is regrettable that the US State Department wants to classify the Falkland Islands as the Malvinas Islands?

[Guy Opperman]

I have great respect for President Obama, and he is truly a groundbreaking politician and a leader of men; he is taking things forward tremendously in America. On this particular issue, however, I do not respect his decision, and am most concerned that it appears to have been made without full assessment of the UN rules on self-determination.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

It is a privilege to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. I want to thank my room mate, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), for this important debate. As I take every opportunity to say, I like to think I taught him everything he knows.

Many of today’s speeches have been poignant to me. I want to convey a feeling of what it was like in 1982, when I was 15—nearly 16—years old. My father, Captain Alan Lewis Morris, who retired many years ago, was then the age I am now. He was in the reserves and was due to command a minesweeper that was stationed in Liverpool, out to the Falkland Islands. As it happened, it was his 25th wedding anniversary year, and he had already booked a cruise on the Queen Elizabeth 2; we all know what happened there. As a young man at that time, watching what was happening on television, with both excitement and apprehension at what was unfolding before my eyes, I had a bit of a moral and patriotic insight, which was part of my wanting to be here in the House of Commons today. My father never went in the end, because the day he was called up was the day the conflict ended. However, I remember wondering whether, if he went away, he would come back. The conflict was very hard on both sides. The fact that we travelled to the other side of the world and fought off an aggressor on a small outpost speaks volumes about the spirit of the British people.

[Bob Stewart]

Such action also speaks volumes for the spirit and the quality of our armed forces who always multiply up their small numbers when they go into combat. In Afghanistan, their morale is outstanding despite what is happening out there. My hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray) outlined the situation in his admirable plea for more money for defence. If necessary, our forces will fight a superior force and retake the Falklands, because of the quality of the people that we have in our armed forces.

[David Morris]

I thank my hon. Friend for that eloquent and powerful statement. I agree with everything that he says.

Thirty years on, the Falklands Islands is still, quite rightly, being protected by British troops. It is regrettable that the US State Department referred to the Falklands as the Malvinas. Coming from a shipping family, I was enlightened to learn that racketeering in world trade is still going on against Britain in that sphere of the globe. We have even had to drop the red ensign, which I find insulting as an English man, never mind as a Member of Parliament.

We must look to the future. There is oil in the region, although I have no idea whether that has anything to do with the fact that Argentina has started rattling sabres again. The oil, which might explain this reawakening of interest in the Falklands Islands, is hard to get at and extremely difficult to drill and mine for. The nitty gritty of this debate is people. Nine generations of people who have settled and lived in the Falklands want to be part of the British people; they are the British people. As my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) so powerfully stated, the Falkland Islands is British. We shall defend the Falkland Islands just as we shall defend any other area of the globe that we represent. The islanders want to stay with us. We protect them and we are trading prosperously from their islands. Such facts speak more about our people, our sovereignty, their sovereignty and this Parliament.

I would like to have powerfully summed up this speech by saying how we would defend the Falkland Islands, but my hon. Friend, the colonel, has already said it for me and in a better way than I ever could. It is absolutely imperative that we protect our interests in the Falklands. We must protect the Falkland Islanders because the Falklands will always, and should always, remain British.