Jeff Williams, a Falkland Islands veteran born in Birmingham, has called on Andy Burnham to take a firm stand amid increasing tensions with Argentina.
Williams landed on East Falkland on May 21, 1982, the opening day of the campaign to remove Argentine forces who had occupied the islands illegally. The dispute over the Falklands remains unresolved decades later.
Recently, Argentina’s president Javier Milei warned the UK against pursuing the Sea Lion project, an offshore oilfield near the Falklands, threatening legal action if Britain proceeded.
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Speaking from Alum Rock, where he was raised, Williams expressed concern that Argentina is “starting to rattle our cage”. He urged the Prime Minister not to be passive.
The 69-year-old referenced the 2013 referendum in which 99.8 per cent of Falkland Islanders voted to remain a British overseas territory, emphasising their desire to stay under UK sovereignty.
Williams said, “No life is worth losing, no family is worth being destroyed when it can be avoided. The fact Argentina are starting to rattle our cage about it, we should say: it’s not happening.
“Push back now instead of leaving it and being seen as weak. Andy Burnham should just say ‘it ain’t happening’, that’s all that needs to happen.
“You can’t sit on the fence for something like this, he’s no experience of warfare and I hope he never has to. But the young people in our military, men and women, are likely to have a life-changing experience due to an inability to say ‘it ain’t happening’.
“If they invade it after that, we’ll have the whole world saying fair play. But if we just keep backing off and say you can have the Falklands, where does it stop?
“The Falklanders don’t want to be a part of Argentina. Ask the veterans on the Argentina side if they think it was worth it, they think it was a waste of time. We need to learn from our mistakes. We made a mistake last time and weren’t forceful enough.”
Tensions also flared during the recent World Cup after England’s semi-final loss, when members of the Argentina team displayed a banner reading “Las Malvinas son Argentinas” (The Falkland Islands are Argentinean).
The Argentina Football Association was fined £235,000, with midfielder Leandro Paredes receiving a ten-game ban and a £66,000 fine.
Williams described feeling “physically sick” watching the banner and said he would have expelled the team from the tournament.
“I was very angry because I knew nothing would happen about it. If we did that, you’d never hear the end of it, we always seem to get the s***ty end of the stick.
“If I’m brutally honest, I would have thrown them out of the World Cup. I don’t know who they think they are to come out with childish and immature statements like that.
“It’s wrong and upset a lot of people in this country, a lot of people who fought and the families of those that died. They felt it was okay to do something like that on a football pitch.
“It was a definite no-no and they knew that when they did it; I think FIFA were very light on them.”
Jeff Williams is also the founder of Veterans United Against Suicide, an organisation supporting veterans.