We have a Prime Minister more interested in photo ops and newspaper headlines than the safety of our nation
The past two weeks have seen Keir Starmer out-negotiated, publicly embarrassed, and cheered on by terrorists. We are living through a national humiliation and blunders that will haunt our country for decades.
It started with President Trump’s flipboard in the Oval Office proudly claiming that, while the UK had dropped our tariffs on US goods from 5.1 per cent to 1.8 per cent, the US had upped their tariffs on UK goods from 3.4 per cent to 10 per cent, and the words “unprecedented access to the UK market”.
I’m an unashamed fan of free trade. But I also believe deals should be reciprocal and balanced. Keir Starmer has managed the opposite: a total sell-out to put the country in a worse position than we were in February.
It was about to get worse. The Prime Minister flew to Albania to announce his plan for deportation hubs in third-party countries. Having cancelled the Rwanda deterrent and presided over record small boat arrivals at the start of 2025, Starmer was in desperate need of anything to help with illegal immigration.
Instead, standing in front of the world’s media and next to the prime minister of Albania – who already have a similar hubs deal with Italy – he was told that Albania didn’t want to be part of his scheme, and Starmer couldn’t even name a country who had signed up. The shame and humiliation were palpable.
Labour is running foreign policy like a sixth form common room. In the same week that two beautiful young people were gunned down outside a Jewish museum in Washington DC, and police arrested Iranians suspected of plotting a terror attack on UK soil, Starmer was adding his name to a tin-eared letter with the Canadian premier Mark Carney that was welcomed and celebrated by Hamas.
As Russia menaces Europe’s borders, supported by China, North Korea and Iran, the world is more dangerous now than at any time since the end of the Cold War. Yet we have a Prime Minister more interested in photo ops and newspaper headlines than the safety of our nation.
Nowhere is that clearer than in the shocking decision to give away the Chagos Islands – and to pay a staggering amount for the privilege.
Let’s be clear: the Chagos deal is not some unfortunate inheritance from the last government. We started exploratory talks, but we never agreed to just hand the territory over. In fact, as foreign secretary, David Cameron rightly paused those talks when it became obvious they were heading in the wrong direction.
This deal isn’t diplomacy. It’s a surrender. We are handing over British territory and paying upwards of £30 billion to do so. That’s £30 billion of taxpayers’ – your – money, taken straight out of the defence budget and handed to Mauritius, a country that openly cuddles up to China and Russia.
Starmer’s claim that this deal “protects the military base” is nonsense. We’ve transferred control of one of our most strategically important military locations to a Mauritian government that is happily building ties with our adversaries. Labour are mortgaging our future and undermining our ability to defend ourselves.
Keir Starmer is using international law as a fig leaf for an ideological, political choice. There was no binding judgment against our sovereignty over the Chagos Islands, and no court has the jurisdiction to make one. The Prime Minister’s claim that we had to do this deal or face losing the base is a risible argument that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. The text of this surrender treaty show what this is really about: decolonisation and “righting the wrongs of the past” – snivelling capitulations to Left-wing activists who hate Britain and are ashamed of our history.
We are being humiliated and out-manoeuvred at every turn and the worst part is that it’s not Starmer and Labour who are suffering, it’s the British people.
The millions of pensioners who had their winter fuel payments snatched away. The millions of small businesses struggling to pay Labour’s jobs tax. The British farmers abandoning land that has been in their families for generations because they can’t afford Labour’s family farms tax. Yet Keir Starmer can find £30 billion for Mauritius just to keep the lawyers happy.
Britain should never have agreed to the Chagos deal and the Conservatives will do everything we can in Parliament to stop it. I will make clear that Britain is still a country that values sovereignty, that understands power, and will not sell out its people to win applause in international courtrooms and Leftie dinner parties.
It hasn’t even been a year since Labour took power and already they are damaging our standing abroad, undermining our security, and wasting billions. Four more years of this will do lasting harm – not just to our economy, but to our credibility on the world stage.
We don’t need moral grandstanding. We need strength. We need seriousness. And we need a government that puts Britain first.
