Falkland Islands Referendum

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

I totally agree. The way in which we look after the Falkland Islands has got better and better, under the previous Government and now under this one. The organisation that the hon. Gentleman mentions does a great job.

It is right to make it clear that the United Kingdom wants nothing more than peace, trade and prosperity with Argentina and the other south American countries. There are so many problems in this world, and it is surely wrong that we are in any way falling out over these islands. While we in this House stand four-square behind the residents of the Falkland Islands and their overwhelming vote in favour of self-determination, we must try to reach out to the Argentine and other south American peoples and stress that this is a matter entirely for the islanders.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I welcome the overwhelming majority vote in favour of the Falklands remaining a British overseas territory. I suggest to my hon. Friend that that vote was in a way a reaffirmation of our position in Antarctica, and that it further underlines the importance and the peaceful nature of our activities in there.

[Guy Opperman]

Indeed, the 1959 Antarctic treaty froze all sovereignty claims there. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, whose private Member’s Bill, the Antarctic Bill, has passed through the House and is now law.

Many Argentines continue to work in the United Kingdom, and many British people work in Argentina. They are able to get along in a positive way. Perhaps the wisest words spoken in the past two weeks were those of one of the international electoral observers, who said:

“The Falkland Islanders are citizens and they have the right to express themselves.”

Those were the words not of a local, but of Senor Jaime Trobo, the Uruguayan electoral observer.

I suggest that now is a good time to evaluate from where the right to self-determination originates. The principle is set out unequivocally in article 1.2 of the charter of the United Nations, which states that one of the purposes of the United Nations is

“To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples”.