David Lammy is set to have a showdown meeting with his US counterpart, Marco Rubio, at the Munich Security Conference this weekend in a last-ditch attempt to push through the Chagos surrender deal. Lammy is scrambling to get the agreement over the line—despite opposition from Chagossians, the British public, and many MPs in his own party. Trump’s team remains skeptical, fearing that handing the islands to Mauritius would pave the way for Chinese espionage against the US…
Senior Trump sources say the fate of the deal now hinges on Lammy’s performance in his meeting with Rubio later this month. If he can’t sell it, the deal could be dead in the water…
Even so, the Trump administration is still looking at alternatives. As Guido reported, one option on the table is for the US to buy Chagos outright. A scenario where the man Labour relentlessly smeared—Lammy once branded Trump a “neo-Nazi sympathiser”—ends up buying British territory would be nothing short of humiliating for Starmer…
Paula Barker, Liverpool Wavertree MP backing Andy Burnham, told Times Radio there wouldn’t be trouble from the markets under Burnham:
“The markets will have to fall in line.”