Starmer’s close friend and longtime Chagos deal legal counsel for Mauritius Philippe Sands is promoting his new book about Pinochet. He appeared on Prospect Magazine’s podcast to talk, among other things, about the US under Trump. Apparently it’s just like Pinochet’s Chile…
“In 38 Londres Street I do deal with those early days of Pinochet and what he did and you know – banning of books, deporting people, removing the military from office, removing the civil servants from office and replacing them with your own people – it looks horribly familiar. The playbook is very very familiar and the logical question one has to ask is: when will people start being disappeared off the street?”
Sands, who recently met in private with his other friend the Attorney General Richard Hermer, also suggests the midterm elections will be cancelled:
“We have to deal with the reality that there may not be midterm elections, I was astonished by the number of people who said to me ‘There aren’t going to be midterm elections in the United States, there isn’t going to be a presidential election in 2028.'”
Trump Derangement Syndrome rears its head again. Sands also makes a questionable reference to Nazi Germany:
“I’ve got to assume the idea of a president going to the president of the Supreme Court and saying ‘This is what you’re going to do,’ is not going to happen but who knows – they would have said the same thing in Germany in 1933 and everything changed. So a lot of warning signs and we need to be extremely alert and this then is the challenge the culture of fear has taken root in the United States a lot of people are not speaking out are fearful are frightened and once that culture of fear takes place it’s much easier for the forces of darkness to wreak havoc.”
So Trump will disappear people from the street, destroy the Supreme Court, and become a dictator via election cancellation. This is the man who made the UK pay billions to Mauritius for giving away the Chagos islands…
Starmer’s close friend Philippe Sands – chief counsel for Mauritius on Chagos since 2010 – appeared on The News Agents and discussed the surrender deal with Emily Maitlis in more detail than usual. Asked to explain why it makes sense that the UK is handing sovereignty away and paying for it, he said:
“Go back to the decision of February 2019 of the ICJ which said, in terms, the United Kingdom does not have sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago it is and has always been part of Mauritius. If you just look at the history of the litigation on that case, 28 international judges have had a chance to express a view as to who has sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago – not one has supported a British claim to sovereignty.”
This is the man who said “Chinese initiatives [are] all underpinned by rules of international law.” Interestingly Sands didn’t bother repeating Starmer’s widely–rebuked satellite communications justification for the deal. That ICJ ruling was of course a non-binding advisory opinion issued after the UN General Assembly decided to change its maps to please Mauritius…
Sands made some other claims that Guido found interesting:
Questionable claims from the key campaigner for the Chagos surrender. Sands has boasted about how great it is to act against the UK in international courts…
Guido’s been keeping a close eye on Starmer’s ties with his human rights lawyer cronies who are all pushing for the Chagos surrender deal. Newly released ministerial files reveal Attorney General Richard Hermer met with Starmer’s mate and Mauritius’ chief legal adviser on Chagos adviser, Philippe Sands KC, along with Dapo Akande KC on November 13, 2024 to “discuss international law and the International Court of Justice.” The cosy chat took place just a day after hundreds of Chagossians gathered in London to demand their right to self-determination…
Starmer’s “close friend” Sands, who in 2022 proudly planted the Mauritian flag on the Chagos Islands, has long been at the forefront of efforts to hand the islands over to Mauritius. Dapo Akande is another who’s argued Britain should give up the islands. He supported the International Court of Justice’s 2019 ruling that the UK should hand the islands back “as swiftly as possible,” even calling the case a “decolonisation” project. Akande also served as Jeremy Corbyn’s go-to legal adviser in 2018 on the UK’s bombing of Syria and praised the “brilliant” work of Julian Assange’s lawyers to the Kremlin mouthpiece Sputnik…
Both Starmer and Hermer put Akande forward last year to represent Britain at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the 2026 election, with Starmer and Lammy holding a meeting with Akande in Downing Street last October. Starmer’s been smug to say he’s not discussed Chagos with with his old mate Sands since becoming Labour leader. Instead, it’s his Attorney General who’s been having meetings…
The government has refused to reveal which law firms and individuals they have commissioned external legal advice in relation to negotiations over the Chagos Islands. Meanwhile, excited government briefings that the surrender deal would be “sealed” at the beginning of this month after Trump appeared to give his backing have gone quiet. Labour’s tangled web of pro-Mauritius connections continues to raise eyebrows…
Starmer’s close friend Philippe Sands KC has acted as chief legal counsel to Mauritius on the Chagos deal for years – it is actually his shaky legal opinion on the “electromagnetic spectrum” at Diego Garcia that Downing Street is hiding behind in its insistence the surrender has to go ahead. Satirists are going out of work at an unprecedented rate…
Beijing Barry Gardiner has invited Sands to chat about the Chagos deal – on which the CCP is undoubtedly keen – on the 25th of this month at his APPG for Climate, Nature & Security in parliament’s Portcullis House. An invitation says the “Chagos negotiations are a complex combination of post-colonial justice, environmental policy, and global security interests, with a wide range of implications for marine conservation, climate resilience, and regional stability” and “world experts” including Sands will “frame the issue and support a deeper understanding of the integrated security concerns.” Mauritius for its part has dismissed existing environmental protections for the Chagos Islands as unnecessary…
Mauritius is an ally of China – its total cumulative investment is around $1 billion. No doubt Sands, who planted a Mauritian flag on Chagos without permission, will present a ‘balanced’ case for the country’s eco-credentials…
Read the full invitation below:
Continue reading “Beijing Barry Invites Philippe Sands to Parliament to Discuss Chagos Surrender”
It’s turning out to be a very difficult day indeed for Keir Starmer over Chagos, following Guido’s earlier revelation that his best buddy and fellow legal beagle Philippe Sands KC visited British Indian Ocean Territory as part of an expedition that landed without permission and raised the Mauritian flag on the UK overseas territory. Things are about to turn even more bizarre…
Giving evidence to a Commons committee in January 2024, Sands wrote:
“As the “British Indian Ocean Territory” is illegal under international law, Britain is currently in illegal occupation of a part of the territory of Mauritius, and of the continent of Africa. It follows too – regrettably – that the operation of the military base at Diego Garcia is not in conformity with international law. So long as the UK’s illegal occupation continues, Britain’s position is no different from that of South Africa in relation to Namibia (from 1971 to 1994), Russia in relation to Crimea and other parts of the territory of Ukraine (since 2014), or China in relation to certain claims in relation to the South China Sea…”
Sands prefaced the document with an introductory paragraph trying to draw a distinction between his work as a paid representative of Mauritius and his ‘personal capacity’ as a writer:
“I wish to make clear that as a member of the Bar of England and Wales I have acted as counsel to Mauritius since 2010 in relation to the Chagos Archipelago. As such, I have been involved in the proceedings before the Annex VII arbitral tribunal (2010-2015), the International Court of Justice (ICJ, 2017-2019) and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS, 2019-2023). I continue to advise the Government of Mauritius. I make this submission in a personal capacity, as an academic and a writer, drawing in part from my professional involvement.”
In March 2014 Putin forcibly annexed Crimea – which basically triggered the chain of events leading to the 2022 Russian full scale invasion of Ukraine. Russian special forces entered Crimea and seized key sites such as invading the Crimean parliament. It was an invasion…
Sands has previously called Starmer a “great friend”, describing him as “generous, humorous and empathetic” to the Prime Minister’s biographer. Again, with friends and advisers on Chagos like this, it’s little wonder that Starmer moved his government to immediately cede sovereignty to Mauritius. The Times reveals a visit made by Starmer to the Mauritius capital St Louis today, prior to his becoming an MP. Starmer is beginning to look like The ‘Mauritian’ Candidate…
If you’re following the twists and turns of Labour’s disastrous Chagos deal, you’re going to need to sit down for this one. Guido can reveal that in 2022 Starmer’s close friend and confidant Philippe Sands KC – who has acted as a paid legal adviser for Mauritius – entered British Indian Ocean Territory without UK permission and participated in the hoisting of the Mauritius flag over UK territory. What?
Sands tweeted (now deleted) from his personal account: “it’s morning on Chagos, where the flag of Mauritius flies, proving that the rule of law is not only a dream”. A record of the tweet remains in a propaganda video published by Chinese state owned China Daily – co-conspirators can draw their own conclusions from that…
An account of the landing, made contrary to the rules set by the UK Government for entry to Chagos, read:
“On Tuesday, Mauritius made good on a long-standing threat to Britain and sent a boatload of officials to visit the Chagos Archipelago without permission. This action has placed Britain, which administers the disputed island territory, in a very difficult position… accompanied by Mauritius’ legal adviser, British academic Professor Philippe Sands, as well as Mauritian government officials and Chagossians. British and American journalists have also joined the voyage to document the spectacle. The expedition intends to land at the remote Blenheim Reef, a partly submerged atoll approximately 230 kilometres north of Diego Garcia, the location of a large joint US–UK military base.”
With friends like this, Starmer’s rush to cede sovereignty to Mauritius begins to make more sense. With Powell in Washington and Lammy meeting Rubio, Labour is rapidly approaching the ‘find out’ stage of all this messing about…
Speaking to Sky News off the back of Rachel Reeves’ Air Passenger Duty hike, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said:
“Labour is dependent on those Red Wall seats, and yet every move she makes poisons economic growth and damages the UK’s recovery… it’s the Chancellor who stumbles from policy misstep to policy misstep… I think her policy decisions are incredibly stupid.”