Argentina accused of 'colonise' plan for Falklands as tensions escalate

The Falklands have accused Argentina of trying to "colonise" the islands, as tensions over sovereignty continue to grow.

Argentina's new President has vowed to reclaim the British Overseas territory as part of his political agenda.

Javier Milei told the BBC in a recent interview that he wanted to do so through diplomatic negotiations and accepted that it could take a long time.

However, the islanders have no intention of surrendering their sovereignty and voted overwhelmingly to remain part of the UK in a 2013 referendum.

Teslyn Barkman is a member of the Falkland's legislative assembly (MLA), a local government that consists of just eight people.

She told the Express that Argentina needed to respect the principle of self determination, arguing that Buenos Aires' claim that it has a right to "colonise" the islands to correct a so-called historical injustice did not stack up.

"Looking at what's happening around the world, it's becoming more difficult for Argentina to be able to present what is a very confusing lie that they are telling everyone including their own people, which is that their ambition is to colonise the Falklands, which would be an act of correcting Britain's colonising of us."

She added: "You can't aim to remove a country from a people or a history from a people or a culture from the world without that drawing in the end some negative attention.

"On the international stage when you're looking at other conflicts and other conversations where self-determination of people, their history, their culture, and their territorial integrity needs to be respected - it becomes a challenging thing to then say, well, it's our national ambition to just ignore that which applies to some people."

Ms Barkman was born and grew up in the Falklands, which has a population of just over three thousand, consisting of around 65 different nationalities.

She said the islanders loved their home and needed to protect their future, adding people were proud of their economic and political development.

"Our self-governance has improved, our constitution has evolved, we have become stronger to allow our people to enjoy economic growth and to have social mobility and to be able to create a bright future for themselves," she said. "That is a great story."

The Falkland Islands are booming economically, and boast a world-leading fishery industry that brings in around £31 million a year.

At the same time, the islanders are set to earn billions of pounds from the Sea Lion oilfield that potentially contains over 300 million barrels.

Ms Barkman said the islanders had developed their own unique form of government which ensured high levels of accountability and transparency.

"We don't want to adopt a full Westminster model," she explained. "We want to remain non-partisan, a kind of independent government that has to form a coalition, which is what we currently do.

"We elect eight people and the layer of accountability between us and the people - the people are effectively the opposition and it keeps us tested and it works really well here."