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Montevideo, March 29th 2024 - 08:17 UTC

 

 

Argentines love rattling the Falklands' cage and Argentine journalists are us usual 'naughty', MP Bryant

Tuesday, May 26th 2020 - 07:58 UTC
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Chris Bryant has visited Argentina and is a staunch defender not necessarily of British Falklands but of the Falkland Islands people's right to self determination and to decide on their future Chris Bryant has visited Argentina and is a staunch defender not necessarily of British Falklands but of the Falkland Islands people's right to self determination and to decide on their future
“I certainly made clear in my interview, is that the Falklands remain British for as long as the Falkland Islanders want to remain British. No amount of Argentine jiggery-pokery can change that”. “I certainly made clear in my interview, is that the Falklands remain British for as long as the Falkland Islanders want to remain British. No amount of Argentine jiggery-pokery can change that”.

“Argentines love rattling the Falklands cage, and I suspect that journalists in Argentina, are being naughty as usual”, commented Labor MP Chris Bryant who was recently interviewed in several Argentine radio stations but was not able, because of workload, to listen or read to his edited statements, aired rather controversially.

“I did an interview in Spanish online the other day during which we were cut off six or seven times so I’m not sure quite how things played out. As I recall I was asked whether I thought Argentina should offer help to the Malvinas over coronavirus. I said they should, though they are the Falklands”, MP Bryant told the Falklands Radio Station on Monday

“I have no idea how much of what I said was successfully recorded. But as you know, the Argentines love rattling this cage. I’ve made my position on the Falklands very clear many times including as minister responsible for Latin America”, he added.

Further on MP Bryant commented, “I suspect that the journalists in Argentina are being naughty as usual. I have certainly always been of the opinion that good relations between the Falklands and Argentina are important, if achievable. In that light I’ve always supported Argentina helping the Falklands and the Falklands helping Argentina”.

Not to mention that “yes If there were a major medical emergency in the Falklands and a genuine no strings offer of help was made by Argentina, of course it would make sense for that offer to be accepted. I haven’t seen a transcript of the Spanish interview, and, as I said earlier, the interview was truncated several times by a bad line. I would not be surprised if the journalists only used, or were only able to use part of what I said”.

But the precondition of any offer or acceptance of help, as “I certainly made clear in my interview, is that the Falklands remain British for as long as the Falkland Islanders want to remain British. No amount of Argentine jiggery-pokery can change that”.

In the dialogue with radio Rivadavia the UK politician was quoted as saying he considered “a nonsense” the excuse that the inhabitants of the Falklands made when they rejected the medical and food offer that Argentina made to them.

Working on these statements the Argentine news Agency edited that “They should take any offer of help,” allegedly Bryant said, and then gave his opinion on the relationship that Argentina and England should have today. Both countries “should be friends”, since “the matter of the Falklands has delayed many times a better friendship”.

However the cheeky interpretation by the 'naughty' Argentine media seems to have ignored facts or forgotten to make background homework, about MP Bryant's position on the Falklands and the Falklands people, since he can be easily described as a pragmatic staunchly hard liner in support of Falklands people's self determination.

In effect, when asked about Labor and the Falklands policy under new leader MP Keir Starmer, MP Bryant said, “I am not responsible for Labour Party policy as I’m not on the front bench, but I’m absolutely certain that Labour Party policy remains exactly as it was when I was minister with responsibility for the Falkland Islands at the Foreign and Commonwealth office, namely, that the Falkland Islands are British“.

”The point I made in Buenos Aires, when I was last there as part of an all-party delegation was that Argentina really will have to stop making ludicrous claims about the Falklands if it wants long-term relations with the UK to improve. That was under President Macri, but the same applies today under the new administration”.

The Falklands radio station looked up in its records and confirmed that in effect the MP for Rhondda, Chris Bryant, has been an MP continuously since 7 June 2001 staunchly supportive of the Falklands. Indeed tweeting in March 2012 in a reply to someone who said “(David) Cameron (a former UK Prime Minister) has revealed he talked about the Falklands with Obama. The President said he recognized the UKs right to maintain (the) status quo, to which Mr Bryant replied “it’s not about the UKs rights, it's about the Falkland Islanders right to self-determination”

Finally the Argentine media also asked about the current government of UK Conservative PM Boris Johnson and his coronavirus pandemic policy.

”(Johnson) He's a good prime minister when you're winning the World Cup,“ but he loses utility ”when he has a crisis,“ Bryant said.

Also in the same sense, the MP for Rhondda criticized the president of the United States, Donald Trump, and the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, for their policies against the virus describing them as ”populist“.

”They think that the vast majority of the people want to go out and they think more about the economy than the health of the people,” he said.

Top Comments

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  • Islander1

    Trimonde Fantasy -Mt family came here in 1847- do please explain to me how 5 generation on am an occupier at the service of a British Govt 8000 miles away- to whom I pay no tax and receive no money?

    May 26th, 2020 - 10:22 am +8
  • border rover

    Oh dear Trimonde, not on strong ground talking about “occupiers”. The country you now so fervently support - Argentina- was in fact the home of a variety of indigenous people. I don't suppose anyone ever asked them whether they were happy to hand over their country to hoards of Italian and Spanish immigrants who then called the country their own and systematically “ removed” the local inhabitants.
    As for bigotry a survey of your posts on this site could form the basis of a Masterclass on the subject.

    May 26th, 2020 - 10:22 am +8
  • Livepeanuts

    Well the Argentine is in default and parts of the Argentine are also in default, so the smoke screen is there as it has always has been during the bad and corrupt governments of Argentina.
    Problem is their education system is the only problem in the South Atlantic. No dispute should exist, it is only in the class rooms of Buenos Aires which in reality is a Renegade, White Spanish Empire Mark II and still fights battles of that original Empire.
    This is put in to Argentine's heads very cleverly, England never attacked Argentina in 1806 because it didn't even exist and those trophies are Spanish (they stole even the trophies), England didn't attack Argentina in 1845 at Obligado it was trying to allow freedom of commerce along with France and not to let Buenos Aires customs enrich itself just for being there, England didn't take away the “Argentine sovereignty” on the Falklands in 1833 because there was none, the so called governor had been murdered and his widow was in sanctuary on the British Ship “Rapid”! Peron's “Nueva Argentina” still tells them England has always wanted to attack you and took the Falklands so they “recovered” “justly” the islands in 1982!!
    Even worse, the “heroes” the soldiers of Galtieri go from school to school to indoctrinate the children, did Hitler's soldiers from 1946 go from school to school to talk to young Germans?
    The lies in the minds of the young Argentines are beyond belief and deserve to be treated by an in depth book and a psychiatrist, here we can only mention some of the problems. Falklands are like Canada and Canada has the islands of St. Pierre which in referendum voted to stay French, nobody knows about the islands because Canada is not fascistly poisoned against them and there is nothing but peace and self respect.
    With the Falklands there can only be armed peace, it is impossible to get through the web of lies of indoctrination and to reach the mind of an Argentine.

    May 26th, 2020 - 11:17 am +8
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