Friday 30 March 2012

In Tutela Nostra Limuria

Sir Simon Jenkins told the Question Time audience that no one made or makes the fuss about Diego Garcia that we make about the Falkland Islands. But his point needs to be reversed.

Imagine if we did do something like that to the Falkland Islanders, who were then just told to get on the next boat going anywhere, which would be to Argentina. Argentina could quite reasonably turn round and say, "Well, we sure as hell wouldn't treat you like that."

The Chagossians have no desire to be Mauritian, and are not well-treated in Mauritius, which is even worse for them in practice than being not well-treated, to say the very least, by Britain. They remain proudly British, doubtless a contributing factor when the famous David Miliband lied to Parliament in order to create the world's largest marine reserve where they are properly entitled to live, thereby ensuring that they could never return. Over to his brother.

The British Overseas Territories are British by choice, and those which remain even now always will be. The same is true of the Crown Dependencies. To be British is to be not just any, but at some level all, of English, Scots, Welsh, Irish, Manx, Channel Islander, Mediterranean, North American, Caribbean, Southern African Creole, Indian Ocean Creole, Polynesian, South American in the sense of a product of the British "informal empire" that one dominated South America.

Sort out the problem of the British tax havens. But do so while charging the British people of the Overseas Territories and the Crown Dependencies only home fees to study at British universities.

Do so while building the airport on Saint Helena, which is essential to the defence of the Falkland Islands, and while holding a proper inquiry into the healthcare situation on Saint Helena.

Do so while giving justice to the Ascension Islanders and to the Chagossians, in both cases regardless of what a foreign power might think.

Do so while restoring the BBC English for the Caribbean Service.

And do so while recanting David Cameron's pre-Election pledge, barely reported by his media creators, to give a share of Falkland Islands oil revenue to Argentina without requiring the slightest movement on the sovereignty question.

Come back to Number 10, Jim Callaghan.

Come into Number 10, Ed Miliband.

2 comments:

  1. Good on you for standing up for the Chagossians. The way they have been treated is terrible.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I do my bit for their cause fairly frequently. Do keep coming back.

    ReplyDelete