Falklands Referendum Shock Result
By Three British citizens voted against the following proposition: “Do you wish the Falkland Islands to retain their current political status as an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom?” This against 1,513 votes in favor, and one presumably soiled ballot out of 1,517 cast. We can’t assume, however, that the three nay votes are in favor of uniting Las Malvinas with Argentina, however; they might want to go it alone as an independent country. You know, like Scotland some day.
For their part, Argentina has called the referendum illegal. Argentine rhetoric in their quixotic quest to take over the Falklands is certainly meant for domestic consumption. An interesting empirical project, if it hasn’t been done already (I suspect it has, someone must have completed a dissertation or chapter on this question somewhere), is to compare variance and intensity of this rhetoric to domestic Argentine conditions, such as economic performance or public opinion approval of the government. Claiming that the views of the islanders don’t matter, that they’re a transplanted population (of at least nine generations ago), won’t win many arguments in the international community given that 86.4% of Argentines self identify as of European descent.
A comparison might be made to Canadian claims over Saint Pierre and Miquelon I suppose, an economic powerhouse contrasted with the Falklands, if only such claims existed.
