Falklands referendum...

[JamesW]

bamboo wrote:

> There are roughly 400+ kids on the islands. The other 800 or so
> will be migrant/temporary/seasonal workers.
>
> The numbers of foreign fishing boats etc, will fluctuate with
> the fishing seasons. The sheep shearers will also, probably,
> only come to the islands for a couple of months a year.
>
> It's used as a base for a lot of the antarctic survey teams.
> There'll be a lot of non-eligible people who are involved in
> the oil/gas surveys. The list goes on.


Unfortunately this explanation is wrong. The population figure for the Falkland Islands does NOT include temporary or seasonal workers, nor does it include visiting fishermen or people carrying out surveys.

The sole reason for not everyone getting a vote is that around 700 of the adult population are of other nationalities, i.e. Chilean, Spanish, Japanese etc, including some Argentinian, and this 30% or so of the population weren't given a vote in the referendum.

[JamesW]

bamboo wrote:

> I imagine that nothing will happen to them and that their
> reasons are probably quite well known down there. They may just
> wish for complete independence.


Some people said beforehand that they wanted full independence and a higher 'no vote' was expected because of this. However, it seems that those wishing for independence mainly chose to abstain in the referendum, rather than voting no, which therefore made the yes vote higher than was anticipated.

[bamboo]

Luckily I included 'migrant' in my explanation James. '...700 of the adult population are of other nationalities, i.e. Chilean, Spanish, Japanese etc...'
I personally class other nationalities in another land, as migrant.

'Temporary' is subjective but in this case, I would class someone as temporary, who isn't yet, or more importantly, someone who has no plans to become a naturalised citizen, which takes 7 years down there.

Hypothetically, some contractor, from whatever country, who's down there for 1 or 2 years on a building project, road laying etc, WILL be counted in the population total for that period of time.

The oil and gas surveyors have been there since I was there and well before that, so if they wished, they could apply and potentially become citizens.They may not be able to vote, as they're not citizens but they sure as hell count in the population total.

I would bet that the Japanese you mentioned are there for the squid, or other fishing. Been there years, classed as temporary residents but still definitely counted in the population total.

Also, I was basing my figures on what I remember from when I last worked there in 2001/02.
Now looking at various websites, it turns out the numbers have increased since then;

[JamesW]

bamboo wrote:

> I would bet that the Japanese you mentioned are there for the
> squid, or other fishing. Been there years, classed as temporary
> residents but still definitely counted in the population total.


If they have been there for years they aren't 'seasonal' workers or 'seasonal' visitors, so yes for census purposes they count as usually resident and are definitely included in the population total.

[trillery]

2nfro wrote:

> seems that typical that 1300 people can have a say to shut the
> enemy


I thought it was 1900.

[JamesW]

The electorate for the referendum was 1650 (around 70% of the adult population).

[Robches]

max_tranmere wrote:

> I wasn't aware it was Sandy Woodward who convinced her, for
> years I thought she was keen from the start and then when
> Heseltine said the right-wing of the party forced her to do it
> my view of the reasons why she took the decision changed. I
> have never held the view that she did it to advance herself
> politically, or to win the subsequent (1983) election, but
> having won the war and seeing her poll ratings rise she took
> advantage of it. The Tories were deeply unpopular mid-term
> during the 1979-1983 parliament. I think they were in third or
> fourth place a few times. She called an election after 4 years,
> she called one after 5 years during the next parliament (in
> 1987). The election likely happened a year earlier than could,
> and probably would, have been because of the Falklands bounce.

The person who persuaded Mrs Thatcher to send the Task Force was the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Henry Leach, not Sandy Woodward, who was commanding a flotilla at sea off Gibraltar at the time.

Contrary to popular opinion, Thatcher was not a war monger, and was not even very well versed in military matters. For instance, she seemed to think Britain still had the big aircraft carrier Ark Royal, scrapped in 1979, until Sir Henry put her right. The Defence Secretary, John Nott, was completely sea blind (he still is), and was quite useless at this point. His main contribution to the Falklands War was to provoke it, inasmuch as he insisted that HMS Endurance be scrapped to save a few quid. He was also busy selling the carrier Invincible to Australia, reducing the surface fleet to 42 ships, and wanted to scrap the amphibious fleet and disband the Royal Marines. He was perhaps the most disastrous boob we have ever had as Defence Secretary, and the fact that he was not publicly beheaded in Whitehall for his criminal incompetence merely shows that Thatcher was too soft for her own good.

[trillery]

JamesW wrote:

> The electorate for the referendum was 1650 (around 70% of the
> adult population).


A considerable number didn't get to vote then.

[JamesW]

trillery wrote:

> A considerable number didn't get to vote then.


We've already been over this. To use bamboo's term these non-voters are migrant workers, i.e. people who are resident in the Falkland Islands but don't have Falkland Islander status.