Well Teribus - I am prepared to bet that if we had given each of the inhabitants of the Falkland Islands/Malvinas £1,000,000 for each inhabitant they would have taken it. That would have saved us millions of pounds compared to the financial cost of war. Then the Argentinians could have taken over with no loss of life on either side and the British taxpayer would have saved millions too. I have no doubt we could also have come to some agreement about squid and oil.

Of course as I pointed out earlier Thatcher would not have allowed Falkland Islanders into the the UK since she did not regard them - for immigration purposes - as British. That was a result of the British Nationality Act of 1981.

Of course once the war was over Parliament passed a new Act in 1983 giving them British nationality.