Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Today's British newspaper headlines show a unified wall of outrage against Donald Trump, across the political spectrum. It's a sign of how a reported plan to punish the UK by 'reassessing the status of the Falkland Islands' has crossed a line that's redder than red. ⬇️

2/ Reuters reported yesterday that an internal Pentagon memo, said to have been written by Under Secretary of War [sic] for Policy Elbridge Colby, suggests reviewing US support for Britain's claim to the Falkland Islands.

3/ The Falkland Islands were invaded in 1982 by Argentina, which claims the islands for itself, and recovered by the UK in a ten-week war which cost about 900 lives. The islanders are a British Overseas Territory whose inhabitants have voted overwhelmingly to stay with the UK.

4/ Since then, British control of the Falklands has been one of the few issues that unites virtually the entire political spectrum. The British victory in the Falklands is widely seen in the UK as an issue of great national pride and its outcome as beyond legitimate dispute.

5/ The news of the Pentagon memo has caused a massive furore in UK politics, and has united politicians from the left to the far right against the Trump Administration (even though Trump himself has not endorsed it publicly).

6/ Even Trump's closest UK ally, Nigel Farage, has said that the Falklands' status is "utterly non-negotiable" and "there is no way we're even going to have a debate about the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands".

7/ The front pages of UK national newpapers today give a flavour of the public outrage. It's almost certain that it will lead to a further drop in Trump's already very poor approval ratings in the UK, and further damage to the UK-US relationship.

8/ Peers have said the UK-US relationship is "under greater strain today than at any point since the Second World War," with the chair of the international relations and defence committee warning that Britain's high military dependence on the US was "no longer tenable." /end