The government is so far defiant after Trump’s ferocious attack on the Chagos Surrender deal. ‘Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister’ Darren Jones was on the morning round. He said this was ‘fine’…
“The treaty has already been signed on Diego Garcia…just about finishing legislation in parliament… It’s the British government’s view that for Diego Garcia, that is the best way to protect that island… the treaty has been signed with the Mauritian government. So I can’t reverse the clock on that. The treaty has been signed. Parliament has a kind of enabling function on treaties. It’s not like a traditional piece of legislation. So it can’t unwind the treaty having been signed.”
That is obviously wrong as the treaty means nothing until it is ratified -moreover, the US is not party to the treaty. Jones added it was “fine” that Donald Trump had changed his position on the deal: “Diego Garcia was part of the British Empire. There was a legal challenge to the sovereignty of it from the Mauritians, but we wanted to secure it for the next century for military operations. And that’s what we’ve been able to do through the deal that we have.” He doesn’t sound convinced…
The official British government response is as follows:
“The UK will never compromise on our national security. We acted because the base on Diego Garcia was under threat after court decisions undermined our position and would have prevented it operating as intended in future. “This deal secures the operations of the joint US-UK base on Diego Garcia for generations, with robust provisions for keeping its unique capabilities intact and our adversaries out. “It has been publicly welcomed by the US, Australia and all other Five Eyes allies, as well as key international partners including India, Japan and South Korea.”
The deal needs the full co-operation of the US to proceed in any form. This is incredibly difficult for Keir Starmer…
Following Andrew Rosindell’s defection, Nigel Farage posted on X:
“Andrew Rosindell will not be the last MP to put country before party before the deadline on May 7th.”