Falkland vote is ‘clear for Britain’

The Prime Minister stated the 99.8 per cent referendum vote in favour of remaining a British Overseas Territory was the “clearest possible result there could be”.

Argentina, however, responded by saying the vote was “pointless” and “irrelevant” as the matter is about territory and not nationality, and renewed calls for the UK to enter government-to-government talks about the islands it calls Las Malvinas.

The result of the two-day referendum was celebrated by jubilant islanders waving Union flags in the capital, Port Stanley.

Of the 1,517 votes cast in a 92 per cent turnout, just three were against the proposition that the islands should retain their status as an overseas territory of the UK.

Speaking in Downing Street, Mr Cameron said the Argentines should take “careful note” of the virtually unanimous outcome.

“The Falkland Islands may be thousands of miles away but they are British through and through and that is how they want to stay. People should know we will always be there to defend them,” he said.

The PM said islanders “couldn’t have spoken more clearly”, adding: “They want to remain British and that view should be respected by everybody, including by Argentina.”

He later telephoned Gavin Short, the chair of the Falklands Legislative Assembly, to congratulate him.

On the islands, assembly member Dick Sawle said the vote should send out “the strongest possible message to the rest of the world about our right to self-determination”.

“The British Government is 100 per cent behind us and it will be our job now as a government to get that message out to the rest of the world and every country that will listen to us,” he told the BBC.

He said the Falklands government had been strengthened by the vote and would now take the referendum result to the United Nations in the summer.

The vote was organised against a back-drop of increasing pressure about Argentina’s claims to the islands by President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

The government in Buenos Aires insists that the referendum of what it calls an “implanted people” is “pointless” and has no validity in law.

Alicia Castro, the Argentine ambassador to London, said the referendum was “totally irrelevant” and “a manoeuvre with no legal value”.

“It is a referendum between British inhabitants, organised by the British, to say that they want the territory where they live to be British,” she said.

“They are British – we respect their way of life, their identity. We respect that they want to continue being British, but the territory they live in is not British.”

However, islanders remained jubilant at the result. One Falklands resident, Lynda Buckland, said the outcome was “brilliant”.

“It sends a message out to the rest of the world that we are British and we want to remain that way,” she said. “My family has been here since 1842 and that is longer than most Argentines have been in Argentina.

“What this is all about is getting the rest of the world to realise what our neighbours are doing to us.”

The vote came after an ITV poll suggested that six in 10 British adults believe the UK should keep all options – including the possibility of military action – open when deciding how to respond to increased pressure from Argentina. A poll for Sky News found only 15 per cent of Argentinians believe the 2,563 islanders should have a say in their own future.