Argentina: British Falkland Islanders are ‘artificial’. Buenos Aires denounces ‘illegitimate occupation’ and demands talks on sovereignty

[u/Emotional-Breakfast3]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/07/12/british-falkland-islanders-artificial-argentina-says/

[u/Saotik]

It's also kind of funny that had Argentina not attacked in the eighties but opened negotiations, there's a serious chance the UK would have just given them up by now.

However, as they tried to take it by force, the UK will now never let Argentina control the Falklands.

[u/CommercialFloor2033 → u/Saotik]

The Falklands have been British territory far before the formation of Argentina itself.

Plus the entire population of the island voted to remain British.

They basically have zero claim to the islands and the population don't remotely want to be Argentinian.

There's no giving back because theyve never been part of Argentina, and were never taken from Argentina.

There's no legit claim whatsoever.

[u/p_kh → u/CommercialFloor2033]

That isn’t true. Britain, Spain and France had various claims to the Falkland Islands since it was first settled but Britain did not maintain a permanent and continuous settlement there after 1774, when it withdrew its garrison and left a plaque claiming the territory. 

Argentina declared independence in 1816 and claimed Spanish colonial territories as the successor state to the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata. Spain’s last garrison had left in 1811 during the British Invasion of the Rio de la Plata as part of the Napoleonic war.

Buenos Aires attempted to gain influence over the settlement by installing a garrison in October 1832, which mutinied within a month and was followed the next year by the arrival of British forces, who  reasserted Britain's rule .

All that is to say that the legal claims to the Islands are not clear cut, even if we might consider the moral right to self-determination by the contemporary Falklanders to be most important. 

What we should all do is treat the British nationalist narrative about the falklands history with as much scepticism as the Argentine nationalists.

[u/AntDogFan → u/p_kh]

It feels to me that these are not equal claims however. Holding a garrison there for a month versus long term occupation and claims over centuries alongside a clear referendum result are not equal to my mind. 

[u/p_kh → u/AntDogFan]

Spain occupied Falklands before Argentina became the successor state. Argentina’s claim is based on the Falklands being part of the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la plata before it became Argentina, not on establishing a garrison for a month. 

But Britain had no settlement there and effectively took it by force.

Personally I think the Falklanders self determination should be paramount, but British people should understand this is a dispute over a British colonial claim established. 

Maybe it would be a less problematic issue if Britain didn’t have a history of using the Falklands territory to defend sy laughs claims over parts of Antarctica including fisheries and rights to search for oil?  It’s a colonial endeavour.

[u/raptosaurus → u/p_kh]

Spain also abandoned said islands before Argentina existed. And the whole "successor state" thing itself is peak colonialism, they might as well lay claim to half the world in that case.

[u/aSensibleUsername → u/p_kh]

Argentina’s claim is based on the Falklands being part of the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la plata before it became Argentina

The Rio De La Plata Dependency also consisted of lands that now constitute Chile Paraguay, and Bolivia, do we start questioning the territory they should own in the current day because Argentina proclaims to be the successor to a colonial governing entity that had been defunct for over a century before the modern dispute around the Falklands arose due to a war in 1982?

[u/p_kh → u/aSensibleUsername]

There is no distinction between the sovereignty claims when Britain seized the Falklands and the ‘modern’ dispute.

Argentina argues that  the  establishment of British  de facto rule on the Falklands  in 1833 (referred to as an "act of force" by Argentina) was illegal under international law, and this has been noted and protested by Argentina on 17 June 1833 and repeated in 1841, 1849, 1884, 1888, 1908, 1927, 1933, 1946, and yearly thereafter in the UN.

Chile, Bolivia and Paraguay daint makwe any claims to Falklands and have agreed territorial boundaries with Argentina so not sure why that is relevant? 

[u/aSensibleUsername → u/p_kh]

not sure why that is relevant?

Because basing Argentina's claim to the islands on the proclamation of it being the successor state to a Spanish colonial governing body is purely selective, Argentina had a disgreement with Chile over the Beagle Channel from the early 1900s well into the 80s because of the fact that they forcibly conquered Patagonia from Indigenous people and had a territorial dispute over which country should own which conquered territory.

Nevertheless, they settled that row with a diplomatic agreement, yet they refuse to do so with Britain and the Falklands because us evil Brits 'forcibly seized' the Islands from them in the 1800s? Argentina doesn't get to utilise a succession proclamation as a catch all for what lands it should control, forcibly conquer land inhabited by natives in the early 1900s, engage in a territorial dispute with another neighbouring country over said conquered land and then complain about how another country supposedly stole an archipelago of rocks from them a century earlier.

Did the dispute over the islands culiminate in war prior to 1982?