[sigh] Oh dear.
Clearly Barry you have never ran a country...
"The dispute over sovereignty has been going on for centuries, and Britain has never been really confident over its claim to the islands. In 1829, the Duke of Wellington observed: "I have perused the papers respecting the Falkland Islands. It is not clear to me that we have ever possessed the sovereignty of all these islands.""
"UN resolutions on the dispute, of which there have been 40, do not refer to self-determination but to the "interests" of the islanders. Attempts by Britain at the UN to include the phrase have proved unsuccessful. The UN says the dispute over sovereignty must be settled through bilateral negotiations, between Argentina and Britain, not with the islanders."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/09/meaningless-falklands-referendum-uk-sovereignty