Polling conducted by the Friends of the British Overseas Territories of the Chagossian community has just come in. It’s… decisive…
99.73% of Chagossians – 2,979 of those polled – said they supported the landmark Judicial Review against the UK government. 99.16% – 2,958 of those polled – said they wanted the Chagos Islands to remain British. Only 25 Chagossians said the islands should go to Mauritius. You can normally only expect to see polling results like this in less developed nations…
Press reports say India is looking to place a satellite station in the archipelago and China is looking to buy one of its largest islands. The carve-up begins…
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?”