LONDON — Partial to a serving of lemon-drizzled fried calamari rings while kicking back in a Mediterranean seaside bar? They’re about to be served with a hefty dollop of politics.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing pressure to win concessions from the European Union over hefty post-Brexit trading tariffs placed on squid and other food items entering the continent from the Falkland Islands.
Behind the scenes, the British overseas territory has been furiously lobbying the new U.K. Labour government to ensure trade barriers on squid imports are included in upcoming “reset” talks with Brussels.
Starmer has promised to do “everything we can” to reduce trade tariffs, while describing the relationship with the Falklands as “personal” (his uncle had a brush with death during the 1982 war with Argentina over the territory.)
But politicians and officials in the Falklands administration are concerned they could be overlooked if Brussels uses the islands’ demands as a bargaining chip to win concessions in other areas British voters may find unpalatable.
After all, the Falkland Islands (population: 3,662) are nearly 8,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean from Britain and of fading importance to many in the U.K.
Starmer’s squid game
Falklanders’ fears about their status became a reality with Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal. The Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) signed by the then-prime minister at the end of 2020 failed to include the Falklands and other overseas territories.
Though never part of the single market, as one of the U.K’s self-governing overseas territories the Falklands always enjoyed preferential access and paid no tariffs while Britain was an EU member state.
But now tariffs of 6 percent are charged on squid, of up to 18 percent on finned fish such as tuna and salmon and 42 percent on lamb (the archipelago has around 500,000 sheep — 136 for every Falkland Islander.)
Those are high trade barriers, given 94 percent of the Falklands’ fisheries products are destined for the EU single market and fishing accounts for around half the territory’s GDP. In 2023 alone, fishing tariffs hit £15 million.
‘Heavily dependent’
Teslyn Barkman, a seventh generation Islander who holds the fisheries brief as one of eight elected members of the Falkland Islands legislative assembly, said the tariffs on top of environmental and geo-political challenges, such as the fraught relationship with Argentina (just a few hundred kilometres to the west), are a real dent to the islands’ economy.
“We are a community that’s very heavily dependent on that one sector, so even a small loss in revenue is quite significant to our village — which is running a country,” she said over a dodgy internet connection as the winds blew a “hoolie” through the capital of Stanley.
Catches primarily of loligo squid are taken in joint ventures with Spain, by vessels to the Galician port of Vigo to enter the single market and beyond.
“If you’re in Spain and enjoying a lovely bowl of calamari, there is about a one in two chance that it’s come from the Falkland Islands,” Barkman said.
For that reason, she reckoned the EU granting concessions — “ideally” back to tariff free squid sales — should be a “win win.”
It’s a message the Falklands has been pushing to British ministers since the EU referendum back in 2016. And those dining in Spanish seafood bars are being warned that the hit to trawlers’ profits could soon be passed onto consumers with costlier calamari.
“It just doesn’t make sense as it currently stands,” Barkman said of the current trading arrangements. She added that Stephen Doughty, Britain’s new minister for Europe and overseas territories, had offered “strong support.”
A Falklands official, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said they had the impression that Nick Thomas-Symonds, who as Cabinet Office minister will lead negotiations with the EU for Britain, would fight the Islanders’ corner when the talks kick off next year.
However, despite the optimism and the displays of support in Britain, the administration in Stanley is aware that Brussels is bound to make their own demands in return for any concessions. The European Commission declined to comment.
Fishing rights have been one of the many controversial aspects of Brexit, with Starmer and his European interlocutors already on course for a legal battle over sand eels and puffins.
The Falklands official quoted above described being “alive to the challenges,” citing fishing rights and quotas as posing a particular dilemma in the talks, and recognized that the EU could seek to leverage these in return for a better deal for the Falklands.
“But this is the last option, I think. We’ve explored everything else. So if we are to have them [the tariffs] lifted, this is kind of it,” they said.
Feeling hopeful
Barkman said she remained an “eternal optimist” despite recognizing the islands had been burned before by “missed opportunities” under previous administrations.
“We’re really hopeful,” she said. “To hear such a positive and strong message from the prime minister himself, was incredibly reassuring.”
One EU diplomat told POLITICO that while there was “no appetite” to reopen the trade deal there would be an “opportunity for agreements sitting alongside the TCA.”
Ed Davey, leader of the pro-EU Liberal Democrats, used a weekly session of prime minister’s questions earlier this month to call for Starmer to remember the Falklands’ fishermen during negotiations.
Starmer responded by saying his uncle was “torpedoed defending the Falklands” during the 10-week conflict in 1982, when Argentina’s military dictator ordered his forces to invade the archipelago to seize the islands about 300 miles east of Argentina.
The PM’s uncle survived two bombs being dropped by fighter jets on his ship, HMS Antelope, but two British service personnel were killed.
“It is personal to me,” Starmer told members of parliament, as he vowed to “do everything we can to make it easier for all businesses to trade more freely so that we can grow our economy.”
Just last month Javier Milei, the chainsaw-wielding libertarian president of Argentina, told the Financial Times he believes the Falklands — or Las Islas Malvinas as they’re referred to in Buenos Aires — “in the long term will become Argentine again,” citing Britain’s recent deal to hand Mauritius the Chagos Islands.
The noisy neighbours
This still rumbling dispute bolsters Barkman’s calls to shore up the Falklands’ fishing industry. She argues that “any opportunity that looks like a way to remove prosperity or economic opportunity for the Falklands tends to be taken” by the government in Buenos Aires.
“And we’re very, very aware that currently, the neighbors” — as she describes Argentina — “aren’t being as aggressive as they have been before but this changes with a pretty regular cycle. So it’s very difficult to maintain the level of risk.”
The need to defend the islands is firm in the consciousness of older Britons, but Falklanders are conscious that they must continue to make the case for their right to self-determination (only three islanders voted against maintaining allegiance with Britain in a 2013 referendum.)
Falklands’ diplomats engage in a great deal of outreach with U.K. MPs and are making considerable efforts with the new tranche of younger members that Labour’s electoral landslide ushered in.
Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard flew to the Falklands Friday to meet troops stationed there in an effort to underline the U.K.’s continuing support for the territory.
A government spokesperson said: “The U.K. understands the importance of tariff free trading with the EU for the Falkland Islanders and ministers and officials will continue to work closely with the Falkland Islands government.
“We will protect the interests of our fishers and fulfill our international commitments to protect the marine environment.”
But opposition MPs are on alert for the Falklands being left out.
Lib Dems’ Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Calum Miller called for ministers to ensure the Falklands are “properly included” in negotiations “so that these tariffs can be cut, and British citizens fishing off the Falklands can sail proudly under the Union Jack once more,” a suggestion that joint ventures may be opting to fly the Spanish flag to beat the tariffs.
It is clear that coming to office as the first post-Brexit Labour PM, Starmer was always going to have to navigate vastly competing interests. Adding to the mix, the legacy of colonialism brings yet another unique challenge for his much vaunted European reset.
Jon Stone contributed reporting from Brussels.
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