The Falkland Islands in 1982 had a dwindling, ageing population.1 Worse: they were of no economic or strategic importance for the UK. Falklanders were excluded from British citizenship in 1981 by Margaret Thatcher. She wanted to off-load them.
Thatcher’s solution to contested ownership was a ‘have your cake and eat it’ ploy: a ‘leaseback’ scheme.2 Britain would hold the territory for 99 years before it reverted to Argentina. (Argentina proposed 33 years.) Conservative MPs called this a ‘sell-out’. Her MPs hated even specks of land in the south Atlantic being given away.
In 1982 the price of pride had to be paid. Argentina invaded.
Fighting a war on behalf of people who been rejected as British the year before was embarrassing. Thatcher’s government rewrote history in 1983, saying it was a mistake.
With retrospective effect from 1 January 1983, as provided in the British Nationality (Falkland Islands) Act 1983, the Falkland Islanders have been full British citizens.3
Making them citizens was a consequence of the ten weeks of successful warfare.
“Answering a Commons question, Mrs. Thatcher said ‘the cost to the defense budget up to the end of September was an estimated 700 million pounds.”4
The war cost £350,000 for every man, women and child in the Falkland Islands. In Britain, “The average salary in 1982 was just over £5,000 pa, the average house cost £31,000.”5 The war cost 70 years wages for an average British citizen.
Amazingly Michael Foot, the Labour leader, said,
“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.”6
Trivialities like fighting a war 8,000 miles away was lost in imperialist fervour. And Britain’s nuclear weapons, couldn’t be used as the USA wouldn’t stand for it.
Britain won the war. ‘Imperial’ Britain was now on the hook for governance and defence costs. These amounted to £2.6bn over 43 years and are currently £60m p.a.
“This £60m, paid for by British taxpayers more than 8000 miles away, represents more than £30,000 a year for each inhabitant born on the islands. This is twice as much as it takes for a UK citizen not to be considered below the poverty line.”7
The price of Margaret Thatcher’s pride is £5,000,000,000 and counting.
Notes
1 The World Factbook (1982)/Falkland Islands (Malvinas) – Wikisource, the free online library
3 British Nationality Act 1981 – Wikipedia
4 Falklands war cost Britain $1.19 billion – UPI Archives In 2025 that is £2.5bn Inflation calculator | Bank of England
5 Where were you in 1982? | AgeWage: Making your money work as hard as you do £700m would also have bought 2,258 houses. The human cost shouldn’t be forgotten Falklands War – Wikipedia
6 Falkland Islands (Hansard, 3 April 1982)
7 The cost of colonialism: What could the Falklands £60m pay for? | The National The war and on-going costs of the Falkland Islands have cost about £5bn thus far.
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