In February last year – just before Trump’s White House meeting with Starmer – the then-Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the Chagos deal would not go ahead if Trump didn’t like it. Good to know…
Robert Peston asked: “Does President Trump have a veto?”
Lammy: “If President Trump doesn’t like the deal, the deal will not go forward. And the reason for that is because we have a shared military and intelligence interest with the United States. And of course, they’ve got to be happy with the deal or there is no deal.”
Clear-cut…
Shadow national security minister Alicia Kearns told Times Radio she would have put a precondition on a China trip if she were PM:
“I would have put a precondition that I was not going to go if I was prime minister, unless Jimmy Lai was coming home with me. I would also put a precondition in the six months leading up to the visit that I wanted a reduction in hostile acts against our country. But that’s not what we saw. And actually, in contrast, what we saw was clearly the Chinese Communist Party did put a precondition, which was that the new embassy in London had to be signed off. So why is it okay for China to set preconditions and to make very clear red lines about what they require for a visit, but we go without having put any ourselves?”