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Jon Sopel and Shelagh Fogarty discuss the historical context of England's World Cup semi-final against Argentina, including the legacy of the Falklands War. The match has been rated the ‘highest risk’ of the tournament following a meeting between Fifa, the FBI and the local police department. Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper told LBC that "the UK position remains the same" and is not up for debate. She defiantly slapped down the Argentine team, who were caught singing on camera "for the Malvinas" ahead of the showdown match. A spokesperson for the Prime Minister said: "The UK’s position is clear. The islanders have repeatedly expressed their wish to remain a British overseas territory, and their right to self-determination is paramount." Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp #shelaghfogarty #jonsopel #worldcup #falklandswar #LBC LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK. Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/ Sign up to LBC’s weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup
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0:00
England, Argentina and the World Cup. This comes and goes on and off, doesn't it, this whole issue
0:04
Well, it's such an interesting kind of clash of two footballing, passionate nations
0:13
but also it's freighted with so much more meaning ever since the Falklands War in 1982
0:20
And actually, in Argentina, I think it still resonates so strongly as an issue in a way that
0:28
I think, you know, if you ask young people in Britain, what do the Falklands mean to you
0:33
I'm guessing that a lot of people would say, I don't even know what you're talking about
0:37
They didn't know where they were. I mean, well, we didn't know. At the time, I didn't know where they were. I thought they were in Scotland
0:41
So, same, exactly the same. And they were off Scotland. And everyone was kind of reaching for the map thinking, sorry, there's a crisis where
0:48
You what? And trying to make sense of it. And it was the most busy
0:53
I was, you know, at university in Southampton, and I watched the fleet set sail
0:59
Yeah. And you were watching our boys going to war. Yeah. And you thought, this is unreal
1:05
It seemed like a kind of... It did. And it all seemed a bit of a joke at first
1:10
And then it got, obviously, very, very real indeed. And, you know, a lot of, you know, 700 or so Argentinians lost their lives
1:17
255 Brits lost their lives in it. But I think, you know, the Brits kind of maintained control of the Falklands
1:24
I think it is still a running sore in Argentina. And so, I mean, I'm fascinated to the extent to which this is football, 90 minutes
1:34
two hours and 45 minutes, hydration breaks, but it's also about geopolitics
1:38
And, you know, the fact that, you know, Kirstama has come out, Yvette Cooper has come out and said, you know, look, guys, nothing has changed
1:46
Nothing will change. The situation remains the same. but it just has it freighted with so much more and so that you know you got the police in atlanta and the fbi raising the risk level this is the highest risk level game in the World Cup so far Just because of this Yes just because it England
2:03
And so, you know, the passions will be high and the Argentinian fans will be singing
2:09
you know, songs about the Malvinas, the Falkland Islands, you know, as it's referred to in Spanish
2:14
And I suspect England fans will, you know, kind of enter into that. So, yeah
2:19
But you're right to talk about the way it just got very real at the time all of a sudden, didn't it
2:24
I was doing my, I was a few years behind you, John. Thanks for putting that up
2:28
I was doing my O-levels, as they were called at the time in the olden days
2:33
But I was doing a Spanish oral exam. And it was the more, it just so happened
2:37
And we'd been preparing Malvinas type stuff in case it came up. And the examiner had a copy of The Guardian in front of him
2:45
with a big picture of HMS Sheffield being blown up. and he showed it to me and said, what do you think of that
2:50
Tell me about this war, you know. So we'd prepped in case it happened. But then fast forward however many years
2:56
I went to Buenos Aires to do, when I was at the BBC, to do some stuff about the 30th anniversary of the war
3:01
and I met a man who had been a 15-year-old Argentinian soldier at the time
3:06
and who had obviously been terrified by what he was seeing around him
3:10
He saw people die around him. He feared he would die and all the rest of it. And he ended up, when he realised that they were losing
3:16
that, you know, that they'd surrendered, he was he was a frightened boy is what he was and he hid in a ditch in um on the edges of a farm
3:23
in the forklands and at night he got so cold he crept into the house and stole a sweater to put
3:30
it on to stay warm and at the end fast forward with the whole detail but at the end of the war
3:34
when he got back to to her to his house his mother said where'd you get that sweater from
3:39
and he told her he stole it and she said when the time is right we're going back to that farm
3:42
and you're giving them nothing that you know my boy does not steal and she did they eventually went
3:47
back to that farm together when the time was right, returned the sweater and became friends
3:51
with the family And there lots of layers to this aren there To this story of the Malvinas Falklands Yes And you know the fact of the matter was you had an unpopular junta in control in Argentina at the time
4:06
Who wanted to strut their stuff a bit. Who wanted to strut their stuff, who wanted to dive away from the kind of economic crisis that the country was beset by
4:15
Britain had given a lot of indications that it was slightly ambivalent about what the future of these islands should be
4:21
withdrew the icebreaker endurance, I think, from the area. Before you know it, he saw his opportunity to launch this invasion
4:33
And, you know, it was diversionary tactics. It kind of initially gave the Argentine people a sugar rush of thinking
4:41
you know, this is national pride and this is we're defeating a colonial power
4:45
in what is this anachronistic outcrop that somehow is flying the Union Jack
4:50
and then it all goes pear-shaped. But the memory of that, and, you know, outside a lot of the soccer stadiums
4:59
in Argentina, you know, the River Plate and Boca Juniors. You see references
5:04
You see references and maps of the Malvinas, of the Falkland Islands
5:08
So it is still very much unfinished business. And from the British perspective
5:13
because British lives were lost defending it, we can't be ambivalent about it anymore, can we
5:20
as a nation? As a government, I mean. No, I mean, and that's, you know, look, that's what Margaret
5:25
Thatcher found. I mean, she'd been Prime Minister for, what, three years when it all happens
5:30
The British were taken by surprise by the invasion. And she suddenly realised that
5:35
you know, it was the most ridiculous, in some ways, military operation, hugely risky military
5:40
operation to undertake for her to send, you know, British troops 8,000 miles to the South Atlantic
5:46
and if one of the aircraft carriers had got sunk, that was it
5:50
It was game over. But she needed to do that because actually her premiership would have been over Yeah If she on her watch you know a crop of islands had been taken over by Argentinians So it is freighted with importance now
6:03
But you look at the difficulty that Britain had in sending a frigate
6:07
to the eastern Mediterranean during the HMS Dragon. There'd be no defenders of all kinds in that way
6:13
We're assembling a task force which will set sail. Really? I mean, what would it be
6:18
do you think that you know we've heard these this pushback today from from political leaders
6:24
they will know what you've just said is true that they're not in a position in the same way to do
6:29
that not in a naval sense anyway um do you think they'll start to have meaningful talks with
6:34
argentina about this behind perhaps besides perhaps behind the scenes could be i don't know i think
6:40
that you know you will unleash torrents of you know stirring up a pot of public you know even when
6:46
the British government says it's in talks with the Spaniards over the future of
6:50
Gibraltar. Everyone huffs and puffs and acts as though that's the end of the world
6:55
I just think if you're the British government, you've got enough problems
6:58
as it is right now. Do you want to add to them ahead of this game
7:02
against Argentina? You're hoping that England win, it all passes off relatively
7:07
peacefully and we stop talking about the Falklands again for a few more years
7:11
And of course we can't forget the Falklanders themselves who live there. The argument
7:15
being put forward by our politicians is they get to choose who they are. Yes, it is self-determination
7:20
They want to remain part of Britain. I mean, I suppose the added element to it you've got now
7:27
is oil. That there have been significant oil discoveries off the Falkland Islands, which
7:32
would be within the Falkland Islands territorial waters, that become British oil. And so there is
7:39
kind of economic interest now. I mean, it used to be just a bunch of sheep farmers on this island
7:45
And who'd want to go and live there? If you've discovered significant oil deposits
7:51
then it becomes different. It becomes more interesting. More interesting and more interesting for Argentina
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