The United Kingdom prime minister, Andy Burnham, said his government will be “relentless” in defending the “right” of the Malvinas Islands’ inhabitants to “choose to be British.”
“We will always respect the rights of the Falkland Islanders to choose to be British,” Burnham said during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons on Wednesday.
“That will never change under this government, and we will be relentless in defending that,” Burnham added.
His comments came after Argentine President Javier Milei said in a televised message to the nation on Thursday that the Malvinas Islands’ inhabitants do not have a right to self-determination.
It was the first time Milei said so. In the past, he had expressed his wish that the archipelago’s inhabitants would “choose to be Argentine” and stated: “We cannot overlook the opinion of the islanders.”
