Place yourself for a moment in April, 1982. Margaret
Thatcher is a deeply unpopular prime minister. Unemployment has risen to over
three million for the first time since the 1930s. Trade unions have staged
strikes and protests against her government’s policies.
Labour has a narrow lead in the polls and people are talking
about Michael Foot becoming prime minister one day. A section of Labour’s right
wing has departed to form the SDP. Labour’s left is influential. Tony Benn was
only narrowly defeated in a ballot for the deputy leadership.
Suddenly, a political escape route presents itself to the beleaguered
Thatcher government. On April 2, the Argentine military dictatorship launches an
invasion of islands known to them as the Malvinas and to much of the rest of the
unsuspecting world as the Falklands .
A special session of the British parliament is convened for
the next day, to take place on the Saturday morning. Thatcher announces that a
naval task force is being assembled and will set off the following week with
the intention of forcibly removing Argentine troops.
Patriotic fervour consumes the House of Commons. No matter
that the islands historically were part of Argentine until seized by Britain in the
last part of the 18th century. No matter that the Foreign Office
ignored several indications that the Argentine junta was preparing a military
adventure.
Argentine, like Britain , was in the midst of a
terrible economic crisis and any kind of diversion would come in handy.
In London ,
Thatcher desperately needed the support of the Labour opposition. She needn’t
have worried. Foot, originally from the left-wing of the party, rose to his
feet and said: “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 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 to ensure that that
is sustained.”
Foot was carried away on a tide of outrage, adding that “we
are determined to ensure that we examine this matter in full and 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”. Talk about a whitewash of
British colonial/imperial history.
Labour could have urged caution and the opening of
negotiations with Argentina .
In fact, these has been going on for months and the Foreign Office was
basically stalling in the hope that the problem would go away.
But Thatcher’s decision to assemble a task force and send it
down to the South Atlantic to “liberate” a few
hundred settlers who claimed British citizenship went through without a vote
that Saturday. And the rest, as they say, is history.
The fleet sailed the following week, with bands playing and
Union Jacks flying. From that moment, a war with Argentina was inevitable. The UN
secretary-general Javier Perez de Cuellar tried to broker a deal between
the two countries, but was thwarted by Thatcher who had given the go-ahead to
sink the aged cruiser General Belgrano
on May 2. The boat had been sailing away from the area at the time and many
consider its sinking a war crime.
Languishing at under 30% in the polls before the war, the
Tories soared to reach 50% in May 1982. This put them on course for a decisive
victory in the general election held in 1983. No small part in the resurrection
was, as you can see, played by Foot and the Labour leadership on that Saturday
morning in April 1982.
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
No comments:
Post a Comment