Britain and Latin America: 'Hope in a Time of Change?'

In the first section we propose briefly to look at the history of British-Latin American relations since the 1930s to emphasise what is perhaps common knowledge: the steady decline in the relationship, which reached its lowest point during the war in the South Atlantic in 1982. Although this story has already been told elsewhere, we summarise it here both to provide a backdrop and to illustrate the contrasts with the later period. We will then turn to an examination of the recent signs of revival. Using parliamentary records, some official unpublished documents, newspaper publications, and other secondary material, we will look at the evidence that points to a relative renewal of Anglo-Latin American relationship in the past decade. The last section of the paper will consider the limitations of this revival before speculating about the prospects for the long-term strengthening of British ties with Latin America.