UnNews:Falkland Islanders vote for Queen over penguins

This article is part of UnNews, your source for up-to-the-picosecond misinformation.

12 March 2013

Emperor Penguin, depicted alongside his wife and child, occupies the junior position on the islands' pound notes, with a rather foxy looking Queen taking centre stage.

The people of the Falkland Islands have voted to remain a UK overseas territory, meaning that their head of state will continue to be Queen Elizabeth II and that her major rival, the Emperor Penguin, will not be promoted from his junior position as the islands' protector.

The vote was largely symbolic, as the islanders were not expected to vote to elect a flightless bird to replace a human leader, but in recent months, Emperor Penguin has received considerable diplomatic support from Argentina, which has sought to harness the islanders' long established fondness for penguins as a way to loosen Britain's grasp on the Malvinas.

And despite the overwhelming support in favour of her majesty, some commentators have expressed concern that the 'popular' vote was only open to 1,672 British citizens on the islands, out of an overall population of about 2,900.

Falklands for Britain spokesman John Graham pointed out that the 1,517 votes cast represented a very healthy turnout, and that 1,513 votes in favour would still constitute an overall majority, and suggested the three votes against - by British citizens in a British territory after all - were "probably just a joke, or cast by drunks, a lot of us are drunks" and explained that the one uncounted vote was thought to be an "illegitimate" protest vote as it was "covered in penguin shit".

The finger of blame for such an act would point at the Islands' fledgling Penguin Party. Its spokesman, Jose Mariquita, criticised the vote for not taking the penguins' opinions into account. "¿How the británicos can call this a popular vote, when no a single penguin have been ask what he want?" Graham responded briskly to this on the islands' only TV channel, stating, "If they are giving the penguins the vote, we are getting our sheep involved. We've got 500,000 of the buggers, and they are as English as Roast Lamb - I mean - well, you know what I mean."

The sovereignty of the Falklands is bound up with its hotly debated history, with both the UK and Argentina claiming to have historically occupied the islands, the problem being that in the days before oil, no one really gave much of a shit about documenting who infertile rocks in the middle of the ocean belonged to.

What is certain is that penguins were swimming around the islands before any colonial European power arrived, and the Argentine president, the milfy Cristina Fernandez, having grown weary of the complexities surrounding her own country's claim to the islands, has recently backed the penguins' rights to rule the islands.

"No one can doubt that these gorgeous birds have a right to the islands, and as their neighbours we will protect them, and should there any be any oil spills in the surrounding waters, we will happily deploy specialists to clean the oil from their lovely bodies. In fact, we'll go one better, and remove all oil from the area, just to be on the safe side."

Sources

• Leverage, "Falklands referendum: Voters choose to remain UK territory" BBC, March 12, 2013