A FORMER diplomat from South Lakeland is urging the Government to change policy and negotiate with Argentina over the future of the Falkland Islands.

Sir Christopher Audland, who was the senior political officer at the British Embassy in Buenos Aires in the early 1960s, said ministers should consider giving up sovereignty over the islands in return for an arrangement which would still allow the islanders to run their own affairs.

He spoke as a diplomatic war of words with Argentina inten-sified in the run up to the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War.

Sir Christopher said there were no strategic or economic benefits to keeping sovereignty and suggested negotiating a deal similar to the arrangement with China over Hong Kong.

However, Foreign Secretary William Hague has said the future of the Falklands should only be decided by the islanders.

Sir Christopher, who lives at Ackenthwaite near Milnthorpe, believes he is well qualified to express a view on Argentina’s claim over the islands.

In November, 1963, his then ambassador warned the Conservative government in a secret dispatch that Argentina might eventually invade the islands.

He urged Foreign Secretary ‘Rab’ Butler to resolve the issue by negotiation. But nothing was done, the Falkland Islands were not reinforced, and 19 years later they were invaded.

Sir Christopher, who later served as Deputy Secretary General of the European Commission, said he would give the same advice to today’s Government.

He has spent the past two years battling to get the original dispatch and related papers into the public domain, after it was declared too sensitive to UK interests to release.

The despatch and some other material were released last year, but two ‘crucial passages’ of comments made by Foreign Office officials were left out.

Sir Christopher, 85, said he had ‘profound sympathy’ for the relatives of all who died in the 1982 Falklands War, but insisted it was a ‘clearly avoidable’ conflict.

“We know the islanders want to be British, but should the wishes of 3,000 islanders – a community not much larger than my village – prevail over the interests of 60 million UK citizens?” he said.

“ There is no military benefit for the UK through insistence on holding sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. But there is a substantial economic cost in currently maintaining 2,000 service personnel and several warplanes on the islands to guard 3,000 inhabitants at a time of massive cuts in our armed forces.

“The insistence on British sovereignty not only brings us into continuing rows with a potentially friendly country; but also puts us at odds with the Organisation of American States, with formerly British Caribbean territories and with the United States.

“The islanders should now be toldthey must think hard about what they really need. Britain would start any negotiations with Argentina from a far better position than it did with China over Hong Kong.

“There would be effectively no limit to the privileges which could be negotiated for the benefit of the islanders.”