Monsieur Hollande has made a clear statement of intent, directed squarely at London, that France will within the next 20 years recover sovereignty of the Isle of White. The French foreign minister echoing his President’s announcement has said that this is no less than a fight against colonialism. Just as British imperialism has been rolled back across the vast swathes of Africa and Asia that the Union Jack used to oppress, the liberation of the Isle of White is the last bastille still yet to be stormed, the final entrance into breach in the name of liberty and the much awaited denouement of a deformed ideology that by all rights should have perished in the Fuhrer bunker.
The French government have begun to lobby at the United Nations for support for their noble cause as well as marshalling support from its allies within continental Europe. Movie stars from America have flown across the Atlantic to Paris to lend their names and more importantly their extensive historical knowledge and expertise in international relations to France’s move to reclaim the territory which is rightfully theirs. This is not the only front in the PR offensive being launched by the French as British tempers were riled during the summer as the French Olympic team released a promotional video before games featuring French athletes training on the Isle of White next to British war memorials stating that they are ‘training on French soil to compete on British soil’. The British move to conduct a referendum amongst the island’s occupants to allow them to decide if they wish to remain British citizens has been scorned by the French government as irrelevant and a side issue and a distraction to the main issue which must be tackled head on which is the end of British Colonialism in the channel. Many have speculated if this latest move is an attempt by Monsieur Hollande’s government to draw attention from domestic French politics, which aren’t panning out as smoothly as he might like, and a sabre rattling strategy to raise national moral. The esteemed President of the United States Barrack Obama has made clear that he doesn’t think the referendum to be binding either and that the US is neutral in its opinion on all things Isle of White and wishes both parties to get round the negotiation table.
Now for the less astute readers the above is indeed not true, the tricolour, though it certainly pays to keep an eye on it, is not on the march. However it becomes so if the word Argentina is inserted in the place of France and the Falkland Islands for the Isle of White, while still more than retaining its full measure of ridiculousness. This is because, minus the failed belligerent attempt to take the Islands by force of arms in 1982, the French standing towards the Isle of White is exactly the same as Argentina’s to the Falklands. The French never have had sovereignty over the Isle of White, neither have there ever been, or are there, any French occupants of the Island and neither has France’s geographical proximity to the Island ever been recognised by anyone, including the French, as being a reason why it should be handed to France (the channel islands are probably a better example for making this last point of geographical proximity). The above parody and comparison can and has been made by others, with for example American control of Hawaii or its hypothetical will to annex parts of Cuba, though importantly it must be pointed out that it can in fact be made with any piece of territory which a foreign country might decide it has the right own, regardless of the will of the current occupants.
The great irony in this glib and unlettered move by the Argentinians is that they are trying to seek their goal with the help of the United Nations an organisation that was founded primarily in the principle of the right of people to self-determination. This is the right that the Falkland islanders have made clear that they wish to exercise in the face of Argentinian advances, no matter how those Argentinian advances might be carried out. This is why the Argentinian foreign minister Hector Timmerman, who sounds when interviewed that if he was given an enema then he could comfortably fit into a match box, claim that this is an issue of colonialism is facile, to put it politely. Timmerman who believes that the more accurate comparison is not the Isle White but instead the extinct British colonisation of India doesn’t understand the definition of colonialism, or seemingly only as well as Sean Penn, in that you need the existence of a people oppressed against their will in order to vindicate the accusation. Call David Cameron old fashioned but I think he’s right in recognising this detail as somewhat indispensable. When called for by the inhabitants of those colonies Britain has relinquished control over all of her former territories most recently Hong Kong in 1997. No matter their geo-strategic importance or the resources that might lie beneath them and there is no reason to suspect that it would not do so if the Falkland islanders voted for such a departure.
And the great betrayal in this piece is the other half of the special relationship which can’t bring itself to recognise this fact. Though Mr Obama isn’t alone as George Galloway also believes that the right of a people to their clearly expressed desire for self-determination is one open to negotiation. Galloway has increased his likeness to Benito Mussolini in offering to himself as the candidate to fly to Buenos Aires and to chair such a Munich conference 2.0.
The central argument hopefully made by now is that there is no argument to answer to or ‘negotiate’ or more importantly to ‘reclaim’. And hopefully the British people and our elected representatives will continue to form a united front on this issue. Otherwise another announcement might be soon received with regards to Le Isle de Blanc.
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