The Rest Is History - 172. The Falklands War: Afterlife

Episode Date: April 4, 2022

In the final part of our Falklands series, Tom and Dominic discuss the legacy of the war in both the UK and Argentina, and debate whether the nostalgic sentiment stirred by Britain’s victory laid the foundations for Brexit. If you enjoyed this series and want a deeper dive into the Falklands War, featuring interviews with some the key players like special forces commandos, politicians and military leaders, download the first episode of BATTLEGROUND: THE FALKLANDS WAR here. Producer: Dom Johnson Exec Producers: Jack Davenport & Tony Pastor Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Email: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. Dear Mrs Thatcher, You have succeeded where we failed. Since the dispatch of the task force to the Falkland Islands, 266 Argentine military advisers have been withdrawn from Central America. Thank you. Yours in the democratic struggle,

FDR, the Revolutionary democratic front of El Salvador. Improbable fans of The Iron Lady. And what makes that even more extraordinary is that the message came with a bunch of flowers. So, Dominic, I got that, of course, from your brilliant book, Who Dares Wins, with its climactic account of the Falklands War. The first three episodes, we've looked at the causes of the war, early stages. And in the final episode, we looked at the British land victory, the surrender of Port Stanley. What is the impact of this back in Britain? Presumably forrs thatcher it's i mean it's you know all her christmases come at once it is it's absolutely um it's absolutely colossal whether it's

transformative is a different question but it definitely has well so dominic on that i'm just going to say for the listeners that we have we have quite a lot of questions about the overall legacy yeah so i'll ask those in the second half but if we get just for now let's just focus on the immediate impact so she announces the uh surrender nine o'clock in the evening um on whenever it is the um the 14th of june uh she goes in she says uh you know white flags are flying over port stanley and And there's a huge roar from the both sides of the House of Commons. Because in those days, of course, the Commons often, you know, the meetings went on long. And they had ridiculous kind of timetables.

And also not televised, is it? Not televised. So it's only on the radio, but it's also late at night. Michael Foote, the Labour leader who we talked about earlier on, he gives a very gracious tribute to her. He says, if the news is confirmed, there'll be great congratulations from the House tomorrow to the British forces who've conducted themselves in this manner, and, if I may say so, to the right honourable lady. He congratulates her.

And that is actually, you know, given her later very controversial reputation, that's a really interesting and illuminating moment. And actually, she... He was an honourable man. He wasn't. Well, he was an honourable man. He and, I mean, we haven't talked about Jim Callaghan in this series at all, Tom, which is a shocking oversight.

Jim Callaghan had also been, her predecessor as prime minister, had also been very, very pro the war and also pays a tribute to her. And generally, I think in the couple of days after the surrender, people sort of queuing up to pay tribute to her. Would it be fair to say Mrs. Thatcher is a famously divisive figure? And she almost seemed to thrive on the fact that people disliked her as well as supported her. Would it be fair to say that in the immediate aftermath of the Falklands victory, she kind of briefly becomes a unifying figure? Would that be going too far? I think it may be going a tiny bit too far. But I do think this is the unique moment in her political career where she is i mean probably the only exceptions when the ira tried to kill her in 1984 uh is when she she

gets a lot of praise from all sides so i've got a quote here from the daily mirror so the daily mirror had really absolutely the voice of the labour party um had had had led the attack on her economic policies front page after front, for the first part of her first term. And it said, you know, now, had things gone wrong, we would have been, had things gone wrong, it says, it would have been known as Thatcher's War. But now things have gone right, nobody should deny her the credit. The scale of her triumph in both military and political terms is amazing. I mean, that's an extraordinary thing for a Labour, such a staunch Labour pay to say about somebody whose economic policies

have been so abrasive and so controversial. So it is a rare moment when, for once, as you say, and certainly across the political spectrum, with the exception of people on pretty much the far left, so Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone,ston jeremy corbin people of that kind arthur scargill um she's getting a lot of a lot of praise and how long does it take for that to wear off for that to wear off yeah a couple of days um no i think she's she has a bit of a honeymoon that probably lasts for another year or so, actually, probably until her re-election victory in the summer of 1983.

She definitely has been transformed in the public mind because she now is playing a role that she had never really played before. She has had sometimes sort of little stabs at playing it, example when bashing the europeans about the common market budget but she's now playing the role of the patriotic kind of national leader rather than the kind of the the nurse or the nanny administering medicine that you don't like but there's still i mean there's still that's still great on on people doesn't it because famously she wants to host a church service of celebration a kind of parade and and a church service in St. Paul's Cathedral. Yes. The Dean of St. Paul's is very much a man of the left.

And he proposes that the service be done half in English and half in Spanish as a gesture of reconciliation with Argentina. And how does that go down with Mrs. Thatcher? Oh of course it's hilarious actually the discussions for this in the archives are brilliant because basically every churchman involved with it you know wants it to be utterly different from what she wants so she wants a national service of basically of thanksgiving God is in Englishman yeah the president of the Methodist conference says basically I don't want the slightest hint of celebration of our victory and no military men can read any lessons or do anything like that, you know, read any bits of the Bible.

The Catholic Cardinal Basil Hume, he says he will not countenance any use of the word liberation of the Falklands in the service. And as you say, the Dean of St. Paul's, first of all, he wants half the service in Spanish. Mrs. Thatcher goes absolutely ballistic. And John Knott, our defense secretary, says, you know, the people who are inviting to this are the families of the dead. How are they going to react when they have to do the Lord's Prayer in Spanish?

I mean, obviously they're not going to be very happy with that. So they basically whittle down the Dean of St. Paul. So at the end, he's basically reduced to saying, could we possibly at least print the Lord's Prayer in Spanish in the order of service? And Mrs. Thatcher just writes in the margin. No! Why?

So it doesn't happen. So it doesn't happen. But then what happens is the sermon is given by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie. So Robert Runcie, I mean, he's another of these. Yeah, absolutely. So he's another kind of thick glasses, gray hair, balding. He absolutely proves your point.

And he's an absolute war hero, isn't he? He was called Killer. He was a tank commander in the war. For those people who don't remember, and for overseas listeners, you think we've just gone mad. Robert Runcie is like a man that a casting agency would supply if you said, give me a wet, weedy, feeble, ineffectual churchman. Because his voice, everything about him exudes that.

And yet, as you say, he'd been a tank commander in World War II who was called killer because of his- And he got FEC, didn't he? I mean, he was incredibly brave. The military cross, the military cross. I mean't he i mean he was incredibly brave military cross the military cross again i mean he's a very brave man to knock out three german gun emplacements under heavy fire and he gives this sermon where he says um he's thankful the war is over because it's impossible to be a christian and not to long for peace and he says all this sort of stuff um the

deaths of so many young men is nothing to celebrate and of course we talked in the previous episode about the sun newspaper so the sun the day after that when they hear that they go absolutely mad and they call him the arch wimp of canterbury so this is kelvin mckenzie who has not taken out german gun emplacements or one no the mc no no no editorial backbencher sir john biggs davison says it is revolting for cringing clergy to misuse st paul's to throw doubt upon the sacrifice of our fighting men i don't know if he's knocked out german gun emplacements someday yeah but anyway yeah um but some but but actually the response to his sermon was quite positive wasn't it from people who'd

attended uh yeah i mean it wasn't too cross about it. No, she makes a point of congratulating Runcie afterwards. And then it's later claimed as a bit of an urban myth, I think, that she thought it was awful. I think she was probably in an enervated state anyway because the arguments about whether there was going to be any Spanish. But certainly her cabinet ministers, so those other people who had served in World War II, thought it was great.

Willie Whitelaw, her sort of deputy, her cabinet ministers, so those other people who had served in World War II thought it was great. Willie Whitelaw, her sort of deputy, her home secretary, he says, I felt that he spoke exactly for me. His words were those of a soldier who understood what war is. And Mrs. Thatcher stands at the parade looking like the Queen. Yeah, so the parade is later in the year. They have a military parade through the city of London organized by the city. And she basically takes the salute of the army. There's also a dinner or a lunch or something

where she gets standing ovation from all the soldiers. I mean, she loves all this. She is absolutely Elizabeth I. It's her dream, of course. I mean, why wouldn't you? Winston. Yeah, she is Winston at this point. This is the thing. She was 13 years old, Tom, when World War II broke out.

So very impressionable age. She worshipped Churchill. And she is absolutely playing the part of a sort of female Churchill who has defeated a fascist enemy, you know, all this sort of stuff. So absolutely she glories in this. Okay. So the electoral effect of this. Two questions. One from Stephenhen clark friend of the

show yeah without the task force's liberation of the falkland islands would prime minister foot have been able to enact the policies listed in quote-unquote the longest suicide note in history so that's the labor manifesto of 1983 and benjaminon? Not the composer? Benjamin Bitton. That's a joke Dominic. Okay. It's an amusing pun. Okay sorry Benjamin. Did the war cost the SDP Liberal Alliance so that's the third party the centrist party that briefly had looked as though it might even become the government. Did it cost the SDP Liberal Alliance the 1983 general election and ensure at least 13 years of conservative rule or was that always going to happen given the split in the left of centre vote and the first-past-the-post electoral system? So I suppose basically what both those questions

are asking... They're mutual exclusive questions though, aren't they? Well, they are kind of, but they're also kind of not, because essentially what they're asking is, did the Falklands War make a Conservative victory in the 1983 election inevitable? I mean, maybe the SDP would have won, maybe Labour would have won, but would the Conservatives definitely have lost had the Falklands War not happened? Okay, so I could spend hours talking about this, Tom. Well, you mustn't. Yeah. Five minutes.

So the very short answer is, yes, it did make it inevitable but it was probably going to happen anyway the conservative victory so let's start with the labor the labor counterfactual steven clark's counterfactual michael foote when he became i mean you have heaped praise on michael foote in this podcast tom michael foote was a fantastically absurd person for the labor party to have chosen i just i just but I always love Michael Foote. As the leader of their party. But yes, he was. His poll ratings from the moment he became leader

were absolutely abject. I mean, they were awful. And his party had been hideously divided in the course of 1981. I think we talked about this in our 1981 podcast, ripped apart by this sort of civil war between Tony Benn and Dennis Healey. And Foote

struggled to impose his authority the public never ever showed the slightest sign of warming to him Labour of course went into the 1983 election very bitterly divided with the manifesto that a lot of its own MPs or candidates were uncomfortable with because they saw it as too left-wing I don't think there's any real – it's very hard to imagine a scenario in which Labour win an overall majority in 1983. As for the SDP-Liberal Alliance, again, how often do third parties rocket up in the polls in Britain and then just come crashing back down to earth, stymied by the electoral system, but also because their support

is so soft, is a protest vote. And I think that's absolutely – I mean, the whole history of the SDP-Liberal Alliance suggests that that's the case. Now, did it, the argument is often, I said at the beginning, is it transformative? Because people often say, well, look, Thatcher was so unpopular before the war happened, and the Tories were third in the polls and all this sort of stuff. But what that misses is the sort of nuance, which is that the Tories had reached their nadir at the end of 1981 when the economy was in absolute doldrums,

but they were actually recovering in the early months of 1982. And is that because the economy was recovering? Because the economy was turning up, because basically interest rates were beginning to come down, consumer spending was going up. The worst, the terrible recession was largely… So that's 3 million unemployed. Well, I mean, it's still very high unemployment, but the worst of the terrible recession so that's three million unemployed well i mean it's still very high unemployment but the worst of the recession was so if you were in work if you're one of the nine out of ten people in work you were now having rising wages and you were spending more

money so there's a big investigation to this in an article in the british journal of political science very detailed tons of graphs which i won't bore everybody with but they basically say what the falcons war does is it accelerates a tory recovery that probably would have happened anyway it may be it maybe accelerates it maybe accentuates it but i think that mrs thatcher was always going to win the 1983 election what obviously the war does is it provides a very good explanation for people who hate her why she why she did it you know because they she they think she's a monster and how on earth could the british people have voted for more of this awful medicine and the war becomes the explanation so um before we go to a break one last question from simon girdleston looking at the um the losers in the war yeah and he asks how important was the defeat in the

falklands in bringing down the argentine military government the following year or was it likely to collapse anyway given the economic problems so that's basically the same question that we you've just answered um with regard to britain yeah apply to argentina uh well that's a really interesting question because most of those military regimes in South America were on a path towards democracy, but certainly by the end of the 1980s. So even Chile, actually, the Argentines' great rivals. But it probably would have happened later. Galtieri has to go straight away. So what happens to Galtieri?

He goes to prison. Yes. So Galtieri resigns um almost immediately uh within days i mean he's basically removed from power by an internal you know the military spent a lot of time feuding in there looking for scapegoats so he then goes off to a sort of country estate for the next 18 months which actually isn't isn't a bad outcome for him you know i don't know what he's doing riding horses and drinking mulbeck or something and um but in about 83, he is charged with human rights violations, and he ends up

there's a whole series of court cases. He ends up being stripped of his rank, and then he's ended up being pardoned by Carlos Menem at the end of the 1980s. Carlos Menem's the guy with the huge cybers, isn't he? Massive cybers, yeah. So basically what happens is that Argentina, there are huge

public protests. I mean, the military junta had put all their eggs in this basket, basically, that they thought. It seems amazing they didn't supply more support then. But they couldn't. Because they didn't have it. Then they really had it. Fair enough. The British have knocked out part of Sports Standard's airfield.

They just don't have all these extra supplies they can send. I mean, the amazing thing about the the the galtieri regime is that i mean i don't know whether one would like to think that there are parallels with vladimir putin or something there probably aren't but it'd be brilliant if there were because what they'd basically done was they just thought you know we'll go into the fulgham all their energy had been put into getting the islands, but defending the islands, it had never really occurred to them that the British would try to take them back. And they

thought, well, the Americans will side with us, so we don't even need to do any planning for fighting off an invasion. So when the invasion happens, they're a bit rabbit in the headlines. I mean, there's a real sort of they actually fight, some of them fight, particularly the pilots, fight very kind of of valiantly but it's an absolute losing cause i mean they were probably you know as long as as long as luck didn't really go against the british

the argentines were always in a real sort of uphill struggle okay and so you um an argentina does become it to repeat Simon's question, does it expedite the process? Yeah, it does speed it up. Absolutely speeds it up. Yeah, because the junta is completely and utterly discredited. Their dream was to recapture the Falklands. They'd done it and they were absolutely campaigning on it.

And then for everything to blow up as disastrous as it did, they've got nothing left. They've got nothing to, they stand for nothing. And that Borges quote that you began the whole series with, two bald men quarreling over a comb, is that how it comes to be seen, that it was a pointless war? In Argentina? Yeah.

No, I don't, certainly not on the kind of right of Argentine politics. I mean, I think a lot of people on the right would just say, I mean, there'd be some people who would say, they're still at our islands. You know, we still want them back. And one day we'll get them. Maybe they will. Well, maybe they will.

I mean, who knows? Well, so that takes us on to the broader perspective. We've got, again, lots of questions about that. So let's take a break. And when we come back, we will finish off this series by looking at some of those broad brush questions about that. So let's take a break. And when we come back, we will finish off this series by looking at some of those broad brush questions. Okay.

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We hope you've enjoyed our retelling of the Falklands over these last three and a half episodes and we'll get back to the final part very shortly. But before we do that, I just wanted to let you know about a new series from our producers, also on the Falklands War. It's called Battleground, and it's hosted by the military historian Saul David and the foreign correspondent Patrick Bishop, who was actually on board one of the British ships during the campaign. Basically, if our version has wet your whistle, but you prefer your history with more on the battles and maybe slightly fewer genius impersonations, then this is the pod for you. And every episode, they're going to be talking

to someone who was at the heart of the action, from special forces commandos, to military leaders, to politicians. In the first episode, it's Lord Luce, the Foreign Office Minister responsible for the islands, who led the diplomatic effort before the invasion and was in the room for some of the dramatic decisions made by Mrs Thatcher and others that we've talked about here on our series. Search for Battleground, The Falklands War, wherever you get your podcasts, or there's a link in the episode description. Hello, welcome back to the final part of our Falklands War epic.

Dominic, we're going to look, pull the camera back now, look at, well, basically, I mean, this is quite an important question bearing in mind we've spent you know hours almost discussing this we have been here all day so did it actually matter um you know it doesn't have any kind of broad significance so for starters from liam cj97 what significance if any did the falklands war have regarding the broader cold war context in which it took place so specifically the cold war the cold war i think it's um

because it's it's too you know in terms of the cold war it's two allies fighting with one another which is why it was so difficult for america funny thing about the cold war context is that um much of the british public debate during the early weeks of the war among the public themselves has a Cold War dimension. So the number of people who are recorded in mass observation is going at this point, which is this sort of project where people send in. You can just still do it now, actually. It's a brilliant historical project. And all listeners should do it. You send in, you know, you write about what's going on in your life

takes and you're hot yeah and what's going on what you've heard people say and how you're like so there's a resource for future historians and the mass observers sometimes record people saying we have to go in because the russians will go in next or they say if we don't fight to to get the falcons back now the russians will be in the isle of wight tomorrow yeah or the channel island so so people see it in that context i think the russians they are impressed with the british fighting spirit and with mrs thatcher but also slightly contemptuous of it as a an imperialist no well they're sort of obviously in public they say it's an imperialist venture and all this sort of stuff but i think they think it's, if they think about it at all, they think the British actually fought much more,

showed much more spirit than we would expect and they're not to be taken lightly. And certainly the other Western allies, so the parts of the Western allies like, say, France, Canada and so on, I mean, they bombard Mr. Stature with private messages afterwards saying, what an amazing achievement. You know, you've done so well. We really admire what you've done, all this sort of stuff.

But actually, in terms of did it affect the outcome of the Cold War? No, not at all. Not at all. Okay. Is there a case to be made for its broader significance then in other terms? Yeah. So when we started the podcast in the very first episode,

we talked about three different places three different groups of people the Falkland Islands Argentina and Britain and it mattered enormously for all three

so let's do Argentina first I mean we talked about at the end of the last episode for Argentina it is the nail in the coffin of the of the junta

they probably would have fallen at some point anyway because of the general trend towards democratization in Latin America, but it speeded that up. It utterly discredited the military regime. So it obviously had an immediate impact on Argentine politics.

It's a colossal moment in recent... I mean, how many wars has Argentina fought in the last 100 or 150 years? Not that many. So it's a massive moment for them. For the Falkland Islanders, now this is where the Borges analogy, I think, falls down. The two bald men fighting over a comb.

Because the Falkland Islanders are not a comb. I mean, they would say we're a community. Now, there are some people around Mrs. Thatcher who said, bribe them. Just pay them. So that's Alan Walters. Alan Walters, yeah. He talked about it in the first episode.

Pay them to move, you know. I mean, there were sort of people in the... Because it's so expensive to look after. Because it's too expensive to look after them. And it's too expensive to fight to get them back. Just in the same way that there were people, sort of letter writers to the Guardian in 1982 who said, who cares what they think?

You know, bring them back, give them farms in Scotland or something. I think that's a pretty odd position to take, that everyone gets self-determination except the Falkland Islanders. I mean, clearly the Falkland Islanders did not want to be part of Argentina. They didn't want the Argentine military regime in charge of them. It seems, I mean, they'd been invaded. It seems odd to say that you wouldn't, that their interests are insignificant. And to reiterate, in terms of fashioning a war that makes Britain look as good as possible, the Falklands War is about as good as it gets because, as you said, there are no people who are being oppressed by the Falkland Islanders they've they've lived

there for generation after generation um the people who invade are kind of torturers they're fascists it's insofar as a British war can shed the kind of imperial baggage yeah the Falklands war is actually as unimperial as or at least as uncolonial as you as you like to get defending a British colonial territory let's get to I mean two people there are two objections that might be made to what you just said Tom or to what I mean I agree with you but there are two objections what objection number one might be well the islands should be Argentine anyway because they were Spanish before that but it's very telling that neither Britain nor Argentina has ever referred the case really gone for referring the case to an international court spain has never well maybe spain or indeed france or did french i mean they all and the reason the british

and argentines haven't done it is because neither is completely convinced of the that they'd win that they'd win um but but equally it just it does seem weird to i mean the the islands nobody there speaks, they don't speak Spanish, they don't have cultural links with Argentina. The Argentine claim, which is based on a kind of propinquity, I suppose, that they're only 500 miles away,

is pure nationalism, really. I mean, it's pure nationalism. So that would be my counter to the 1833, they should have been always Argentine argument. The other argument is that, oh, the British are just imperialists it's a legacy of empire and britain shouldn't have it but of course the problem with that is well if if the british are just imperialists and their falklands is just a colonial relic what's argentina yeah i mean yeah i mean all the argentines have spanish or italian they don't have indigenous, you know, sort of pre-Columbian conquest surnames.

They're all Spanish and Italian, European surnames because they all have Spanish and Italian heritage. Oh, indeed. Or German or Welsh. No, Fairpoint, well-made. Well, lots of Welsh, aren't there? In Patagonia. Patagonia, yeah.

With the dinosaurs. Maybe the Welsh. So dinosaurs and Welsh people. Maybe the Falklands should be a colony of a greater Welsh empire. Yeah. I'll tell you what distracted me, Tom, there. There's a series of books.

Have you ever read a series of books by a guy called Malcolm Price? No. They're called Aberystwyth, Mon Amour, Last Tango and Aberystwyth and so on. No. They're sort of noir fiction set in Aberystwyth in Wales. Really? And they're in a weird parallel universe where Wales had a colony where Argentina was Welsh.

Oh, right. Oh, I must read it. Yeah, it's very good. They're very good. I'd say like Prince Madoc, who is supposed to have colonized North America in the Middle Ages. Is that right? Yeah.

Oh, that's good. So there are scholars who think that there are traces of the welsh language in various native american i'm dubious about that yeah i i let's say the scholarly consensus isn't entirely behind that okay argument but it but it's it's there anyway listen we are again yeah it is it is so here here is um a question from diogo mogado again very much friend of the show um dominic suggested that had britain lost the war it wouldn't think of itself as a major world power and hence brexit would never have happened what i love about that your your your your your your hot brexit take he is familiar

with my thesis he is familiar with my thesis yes so why it matters for britain i think is not because it ensures mrs thatcher another term because i think she'd have had that anyway why i think it really matters for britain is that really since suez so you mentioned suez when we're talking about the commons meeting the aftermath of the argentine invasion and you were putting up then weren't you putting up the net in your garden that's right yeah the cricket net um and this being a great moment of national humiliation and the funny thing about that was that was absolutely the kind of thing that you'd expect to happen in britain because in many ways the story of the last few decades had been one of perceived national humiliation so the loss of of all the different bits empire, Union Jacks coming around in places across the world,

the horrible saga of Northern Ireland, which is a terrible sort of stain on Britain's international reputation in the 70s and 80s, rightly or wrongly, but also economic sort of embarrassments, the devaluation of the pound, having to get a bailout from the International Monetary Fund, all these kinds of things. This sort of perception of Britain as the sick man of Europe.

So when the Falklands War happens, to me, I think that sort of sets the seal on all that. And that moment that you ventriloquize so splendidly where Sir Henry Leach says to Mrs Thatcher, if we don't fight, we shall be living in an entirely different country. Shall I do it again? Do you want to? Yeah, would you like to hear it again?

I mean, I think the listeners would have found it very moving. I can only guess what the listeners will be thinking when they come to listen to this, but maybe they will want it again? Do you want to? Yeah, would you like to hear it again? I mean, I think the listeners would have found it very moving. I can only guess what the listeners will be thinking when they come to listen to this, but maybe they will want it again. Yeah, let's reprise it. Go on then. Can we do it? Yes, we can, Prime Minister. And though it is not my business to say so, we must.

For if we do not, or if we pussyfoot in our actions and do not achieve complete success, in another few months we shall be living in a totally different country or if we pussyfoot in our actions and do not achieve complete success, in another few months, we shall be living in a totally different country whose word will count for little. Now, you see, Tom, I think you delivered it this time with more feeling. I did. Because?

I did, because we've reached the end. And so now I'm- Because before you didn't know what was going to happen. No, now I'm aflame with patriotic zeal. Yeah, because you didn't know how it was going to end. The Union Jack is'm aflame with patriotic zeal. Yeah, because you didn't know how it was going to end. The Union Jack is fluttering over my head

as I recite that. Extraordinary scenes at Brixton. So, yes, so Henry Leach's argument that basically it's a turning point, he says,

if we don't do this, I think is an interesting one. What if they hadn't done it? What if they had allowed, you know, the Argentines as it were to get away with it? Or what if they had sent the task force andines were to get away with it or what if

they had sent the task force and they had blown out of the sea and be blown out of the sea what would have happened then well irrespective of the political impact i think psychologically what that would have done would it was it it would have confirmed the narrative that was so entrenched in the 1970s of inevitable british decline of britain as the kind of market leader in a kind of in being a failing western democracy yeah and also I suppose a specific you know confined to the European theatre because oh absolutely absolutely you know the whole sending ships across the across the ocean but also Diogo Morgaro's argument which is that um well I think it's your argument isn't it that he's yeah it is so so the thing about

brexit and the thing about europe's specifically britain had gone into europe in 1973 and and there were really i mean there had been a bit of the element of like we're all friends now after the war let's join hands kind of come by our but probably a stronger sense in that debate was we were an empire and we're not anymore. So we have to kind of find a new lifeboat to jump into. So this sort of people have gone into Europe quite, the public polls show people, a lot of people have gone into Europe quite grudgingly as a sort of a strategy born of a perceived sense of failure. And what you absolutely see everywhere in the summer of 1982, you see it in the press, you see it in people's diaries,

you see it on TV. You know, ITV has this huge night of spectacular with all Roger Moore and I don't know, Shawody, whatever. And from that point on, Brexit was inevitable. But there's this sort of sense, Britain has changed. Britain has become a different kind of country. And Mrs. Thatcher, absolutely. I'm just trying to dig out the...

Well, here's a good example. So this is from the Daily Express. The columnist who wrote this, I met him after I'd published the book, and he said he was delighted that I'd dug out his column and featured it. It's a guy got Peter Mackay. Here is a column called The Crowning Glory.

And this is after Princess Diana gave birth a week after the end of the Falklands War to Prince William. What times we live in, the excitement surrounding a royal birth, the famous victory in the Falklands, a nation which according to all recent opinion polls exalts in a common aim. There cannot have been a June like this for 30 years indeed since june 1953 the queen's coronation coinciding with the conquering of everest and the headline over both events which said all this and everest too he goes on he says we'll have to wait for a long time to see the likes of this summer and the excitement of these days,

days in which we seem incapable of defeat and that kind of stuff, which Mrs. Thatcher does too. She goes to Cheltenham race course and she gives this speech saying, um, we have ceased to be a nation in retreat. We have found ourselves again in the folklore. It's the spirit of the South Atlantic, as she calls it. Enoch Powell, who people sometimes see

as one of the prophets of Thatcherism, he wrote in his book, he said, a change has come about in Britain. We are ourselves again. And that kind of, I mean, that was the title, as you know, Tom, of the final chapter of my book on this, We Are Ourselves Again. Because I think among people of that persuasion, because I think among people of that persuasion,

not everybody, but people of that persuasion, there's this sense of, oh, thank God we've thrown off the last few decades. We're an exceptional country with an unrivaled past and a unique destiny. And the whole, you know, now the European project gets in the way of that. Despite the fact, of course, as we know, the French helped us. Yeah. Chileans helped us. The United States helped us.

We didn't do it all alone. But the alone myth becomes absolutely embedded from this point onwards. Can I just, I mean, two possible objections to that. Yeah, go for it. One is that between the Falklands and the brexit vote you have the iraq war in which britain is you know a junior player in a disastrous war yeah uh does that not kind of and and again is revisiting a kind of a scene of of the colonial past in the in the form of iraq yeah but i don't think the Iraq war, I mean...

Does that not kind of have a knock-on? I mean, I think it definitely does. Does it change the way people think about Britain? Well, I think it... It changes the way people think about Tony Blair, your pal Tony Blair, but it doesn't change the... Well, I mean, so support for the... You said that support for the Falklands War

in the wake of the war was kind of 80%, 80-20%. The Brexit vote was 52-48. So that implies that there's been quite a decline in the sense of Britain as a go-it-alone, have-a-go hero kind of country. And I would say that the experience of Britain going to war in distant non-European theatres hasn't been a particularly glorious one since the Falklands. Yeah, that's true. I mean, obviously Iraq and Afghanistan and so on. But I don't think those conflicts are as –

so what the Falklands, I think, is, is it's the sort of missing link in a way between them the the world war ii myth if you like nation standing alone summer 1940 churchill all that i mean when i say myth i don't mean it's invented but i mean it's taken on the quality of the mythic mythic resonance mythic resonance it's i think it's the it's the sort of the thread the staging post there's two different metaphors anyway it's one of them. Between 1940 and 2016. So this idea that Britain can do things, that it's refound itself, the flying of not much of that patriotic populism in the 60s and 70s. There's actually a much wider sense of kind of defeatism, constant publishing of league tables in which Britain's at the bottom. And after 1982, the speed with which that vanishes from the national discourse is extraordinary.

And I think, okay, you can't draw, it's not a simple direct line between 1982 and 2016 but if 1982 had worked out differently i mean just think what ammunition that would have been for the remain campaign yeah i'm sorry i guess i'm certainly playing devil's advocate here but also i think what it does more psychologically i think the falklands were rekindled i mean particularly all the stuff we talked about with the sun the sort of of, you know, the tabloids. If you want to call it jingoism, call it jingoism. That feels very 18th century to me.

It's very roast beef of old England. Completely. So that's my other question. Yeah. Is that reading about it now, there's an awful lot of stuff about kith and kin and about the kind of the venerable, you know, it's the tradition of Drake.

It's a heroic one. The Royal Navy, Britannia ruling the waves. In a way that I think, you know, there are clearly, you know, that still has a lot of resonance for lots of people in britain but one of the things that's striking about it is that everybody involved in you know that we've talked about in this uh in this series is is white and it kind of draws attention to to how much change there's been in the ethnic makeup of britain since 1982 to now and that must complicate the narrative of britain's engagement overseas and the legacy of britain as a great power but i don't think it but i don't think it would i don't think it complicates it as much as if um as if the argentines had i mean the argentines are i agree

because the argentines are the ideal villains yeah there's a sentence of spanish and italian immigrants so they're not you know they're descendants of Spanish and Italian immigrants. So they're not an indigenous black population. Now, that would complicate it enormously. So if the Falklands War had been fought again... So, for example, maybe a parallel with the Falklands is the Indian annexation of Goa. So Goa would have been a Portuguese colony.

And India basically... That's in the 60s, isn't it? Yeah, exactly, in the 60s. India annexes it. There's nothing Portugal can do. And from that point on, Goa is Indian. Now, had that been the analogous kind of situation, in other words, had it been a post-colonial country

with a kind of indigenous population who had seen themselves as being oppressed by colonial overlords, taking back something that has an ethnic population not unlike their own against their white oppressors, then the Falklands War would obviously look very different today. But it's not like that, is it? Yes, I agree with all that.

I just think that with 80% enthusiasm for the Falklands War in 1982, and Union Jacks everywhere, Hearts of Oak, Drake, Nelson, you could say that perhaps it was the last kind of guiltless hurrah for a kind of tradition of exultant patriotism and and that if you know if you want to talk about brexit brexit perhaps for lots of people was a chance to express that again in a way that they felt had been made had been denied them in the intervening period and and perhaps that's why it was so polarizing yeah possibly tom i mean i think i think on the other hand i'm slightly thinking on my feet here yeah but i think the implication of what you're saying though is that the sort of ethnic minority population of britain the non-white population would be among the you know they would be swelling the ranks of the 20 percent um and i'm not sure that's necessarily true i think there'd be an awful lot of yeah there'd be an awful lot of black well i know that yeah that lots lots lots supported

brexit as well and also let's imagine imagine imagine a similar situation imagine argentina was currently run by a um a hard right dictatorship that that applied electrodes to the genitals of poets and they invaded the falkland islands tomorrow, what would public opinion be like in Britain? I mean, I don't think... That's a really interesting question. I don't think it would be 52-48. I think it would be more like the 80-20. Well, I suppose the Ukraine, the general support for Ukraine.

Yeah, and I think the 20 would be the same people, by the way. Salman Rushdie margaret drabble polly toynbee jeremy corbin you know a lot of maybe a lot of our listeners um would be among the 20 i'm not i don't want to completely stereotype the 20 but i think the the proportion that would be the sort of retake the islands because i don't think i mean you talked about it as a colonial war now when we think about post-war colonial wars it was a colonial war because this was that this was a colony but but tom when we talk about colonial wars we generally think about two kinds of war

so one is a war where just the the occupying power is trying to suppress a nationalist uprising so that would be you know the french and algeria well i mean actually no that's a different guy the other is where you're backing settlers against an indigenous population so so one is very straightforward it's occupiers and occupied and the other the settlers involved the falklands is not quite like either of those things because there is no so to keep saying that it's the perfect colonial war because none of those complexities are involved in it yeah but that makes it different from almost any other colonial i i agree but i do also think that there's that attitudes to the empire have and i know that this you know mr satcher wasn't interested

in the empire the falklands war wasn't about trying to recreate the empire i understand that but it was nevertheless a colonial war and i I do think that attitudes to the empire have become more complicated. Of course they have. Now, what's really interesting is, so the phrase that's sometimes used with the Falklands War is the empire strikes back, most famously by Newsweek magazine. Yes, it's the task force setting off. It's the task force. But the first use of it that I found when I wrote my book was among soldiers themselves themselves they have it written on a kind of blanket that they're hanging over the side of one of the ships as they leave so it's being generated as it were from below and it's among

the the troops the young men in their early 20s obviously because they're the target audience for star wars they've seen the film yeah so just a year a year or two earlier um how much is this a war of nostalgia for empire i don't think it is about nostalgia for empire i think it's not no i don't think it's i don't think it's a it's nostalgia for this thomas is nostalgia for the second world war i think yeah i know i think it's even more than that i think it's nostalgia for britain ruling the waves i think it's uh hearts of oak it's um nelson it's it's it's nostalgia for a world in which Britain uncomplicatedly rules the waves. It's not a nostalgia for the implications of why Britain rules the waves.

Well, let me just read you this. I think it's sea shanties and, well, Drake and all that kind of stuff. Of course. Let me just read you a couple of things. So one is, let's go back to the 5th of April. So that's when the task force leaves from Portsmouth. The Daily Mail had a bloke there who interviews one of them at crowd. The guy in the crowd is called Tommy Mallon. He is a veteran of World War I. And this is what he says. He says, was done for spineless a doormat for the world i'd pass the war memorials or see nelson's victory and i'd wonder what it had all been for but i was wrong thank god we're still a proud country and we'll still protect our own so that's right so it's but it's the protecting our own yeah well that obviously i think that that has become more complicated yes i think that's that's fair because what he means by our own is people

from britain who went out in the 19th century uh well i think so jonathan raven had who we talked about in one who had this brilliant book um uh about um um sailing around the coast of britain um brilliant travel writer he says at one, the thing about the Falkland Islanders is they look like Britons from the 1950s. I mean, you're right, Tom, he means white Britons because they speak and they sound and they look

physically because of the way they're dressed. Cause they're old fashioned because their stuff's having to be imported. Well, it was, it was all that kind of, you know, the, the,

the archers stuff that, that we, that you were talking about when the, when the British troops land. Yeah, exactly. There's like, you know,

have leads been relegated. Yeah. You've taken the time to do an episode of all creatures, great and small. Yes. Yeah, exactly. So I think this,

I mean, there's a writer called Anthony Barnett, who's actually a very, very big remainer and has written tons of stuff. Yes. I've people's people's votes, all this sort of business. I've shared a taxi with him.

There you go. Across Greece. He's the husband of Judith Herron, isn't he? He is, yes. He's an anti-historian. So he wrote a really, really... I mean, I don't personally necessarily agree with him, but I find it really insightful and interesting.

He wrote a really good... I can't remember if it was an essay or a book in the immediate aftermath of the Fulton's War in which he says... I mean, he noticed that something had changed and he calls it Churchillism. And he says, the whole thing is drenched in this obsessive nostalgia for the summer of 1940, but also for D-Day, obviously.

The idea of standing alone, the idea of an island people, the idea of fascists, the prime minister who rises to the moment, the standing for freedom, that we're just a little people, our men with their backpacks yomping across the moors. Bubble hats. All of this, yeah, all of that stuff. And the naval stuff is a huge element of that because it's so deeply rooted in Britain's self-image.

But I think a lot of that iconography obviously was used in 2016 and completely even among people who didn't vote to leave the eu i think it still has a huge pull doesn't it i mean uh yes but i think it also has a huge repulsion effect i think lots of people are a lot you know as jonathan rabin was yeah find it unsettling and frightening and disturbing well yeah and i think that that is what made brexit and the um the debate that followed brexit so visceral on both sides i think so alan bennett the playwright uh who's of course another great remainer writes a uh an annual big diary column for the London Review of Books. He wrote a piece saying, you know, I don't, after this result.

After the Falklands. Well, wait. After this result, I don't feel English. You know, there are people singing Robert's Hand and these kind of vulgar people. I don't, I feel like everything I believed in has been turned on its head. And he's not talking about the Brexit.

He's talking about the Falklands war, but he basically writes the same column again. Okay. Okay. So yeah. So, all right. So I think I,

you have completely convinced me that the Falklands reverberate into the present. Okay. Maybe it doesn't cause Brexit, but, but, but it amplifies trends that culminate in Brexit. I don't think you can talk. I think, I think the two are on the, yeah, exactly. They're on the same Brexit. I don't think you can talk.

I think the two are on the, yeah, exactly. They're on the same continuum. I don't know. I've mixed metaphors on this now so many times. And do you think that justifies for almost the long episodes on it? Definitely. I think it does. But I think a lot of people, Tom, will be keen maybe not to hear more about the Falklands War but possibly to read more

but to read but do you not think I think they would I'm gonna so I'm gonna recommend it again your book on this Who Dares Wins Britain 1979 to 1982 and I was talking about this with Sadie my wife we we went to a very peculiar hotel in Cornwall it was a special offer and so we took foolishly took it up it was a terrible hotel kind of faulty towers-esque and it just rained solidly and so we stayed in our awful damp hotel room but i had your book which is about 7 000 pages and i honestly dominic it was one of the great reading experiences of my life i think i live tweeted it so you were able to tell how much i was enjoying it and and the the the falklands war is just there are four chapters aren't there it's the most brilliant climax i

think it's your one of the great passages of uh contemporary history oh tom you're too kind i really what have i done to deserve this but the rest of the rest of the book is fabulous as well but the the the falklands it's absolutely bravura writing so uh highly highly recommend it Dominic thanks so much thank you Tom thank you for listening to me have my head no absolute pleasure uh I've been looking forward to it ever since we started this podcast and we remember I was kind of saying you know I hope we're still going yeah um for the anniversary and incredibly we are so uh thanks very much for listening if you've made it this far all four of you um bye bye bye thanks for listening to the rest is history for bonus episodes, early access, ad-free listening and access to our chat community,

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