Snatching winter fuel allowance from OAPs while giving away billions AND Chagos makes us an international laughing stock
BENDING the knee is one of Sir Keir Starmer’s favourite exercises.
Nothing illustrates his abject impulse for appeasement more graphically than his mishandling of the Government’s policy towards the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean.
Few members of the public had heard of these islands before Starmer came to power, but his spectacular ineptitude is fast turning the negotiations about their future into a major national scandal that could even sink his government.
The great historian Robert Conquest once wrote that the “behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies”.
Those words could certainly be applied to Labour’s disastrous stance on the Chagos Islands, which makes no rational sense in the context of Britain’s strategic needs.
The only explanation is that Starmer and his inner circle of advisers have been so blinded by their worship of global judicial activism that they have descended into an insidious form of institutionalised treachery against Britain.
At the heart of this saga is the fact that the islands have been in British hands for more than 200 years, ever since the 1814 Treaty of Paris.
Over these two centuries, the archipelago became an important strategic asset for Britain, the US and our Western allies.
Particularly vital has been the military base at Diego Garcia, whose role in upholding the security of the free world has become even more crucial in recent decades as China’s aggressive ambitions have intensified.
Yet, bizarrely, Starmer has chosen to negotiate the handover of the islands to Mauritius, which has unconvincingly laid claim to the territory, even though it lies 1,300 miles from the archipelago and has never occupied an inch of its soil.
Indeed, when Mauritius first gained independence in 1968, the new government showed no interest in taking control of the islands.
Attitudes subsequently changed, and Mauritius embarked on legal action, with a degree of success.
In 2019, the International Court of Justice ruled that Britain should hand over the islands, a verdict later endorsed by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.
In the face of this ruling, the Tory Government stood up for Britain’s rights and the West’s interests.
But such robustness vanished when Starmer came to power.
A fervent believer in the absolute primacy of international law, he has been desperate to reach a deal with Mauritius, a goal that he shares with the Attorney General Lord Hermer, another human rights lawyer whose whole career has been immersed in the anti-British values of the progressive metropolitan elite.
This is a man who counts Irish Republican former leader Gerry Adams and jihadi bridge Shamima Begum among his clients.
It is ridiculous to expect Britain to subsidise a distant government on such a colossal scale when our own public services at home are crying out for more cash
Leo McKinstry
The deal that Starmer has cooked up reflects Labour’s cowardly folly.
Not only does the Government plan to give away the islands but will pay Mauritius a whopping sum for the privilege of taking them, as long as Britain is allowed continuing access Diego Garcia base.
It has been reported that over a lease period of 99 years, we will make annual payments of £90million, bringing the total to £8.9billion, though the government of Mauritius says that, with inflation, the sum is more likely to be £19billion.
That is more than our Government currently spends in total every year on policing and prisons.
AGGRESSIVE AMBITIONS
It is ridiculous to expect Britain to subsidise a distant government on such a colossal scale when our own public services at home are crying out for more cash.
It is so typical of Starmer’s twisted outlook that he should be more concerned about winning the approval of Mauritius than addressing the concerns of his own citizens.
If the Labour government were not draining away so much money in the Indian Ocean, there would be no need to withdraw the Winter Fuel Allowance, and the Chancellor Rachel Reeves would have fewer black holes on her Treasury balance sheet.
Nigel Farage, never one to miss an opportunity, chided Starmer yesterday by noting that pensioners “are losing their Winter Fuel Allowance, feeling the pinch at the same time as we are giving away a military base”.
Now it is beginning to dawn on Starmer’s own MPs how serious their leader’s expensive folly could be.
Several senior figures in the Government have described the Prime Minister’s proposed agreement as “terrible”, “mad” and “impossible to understand”.
The idea of putting Britain first or giving more weight to the democratic will of the people is alien to them
Leo McKinstry
At least one member of the Cabinet has voiced his concern. But it is doubtful if such opposition will be heeded.
Starmer and his allies like Lord Hermer are bent on their foolish course.
In their mindset, compliance with international courts, no matter how obscure, is the key duty.
The idea of putting Britain first or giving more weight to the democratic will of the people is alien to them. Starmer said yesterday that a deal would “address the wrongs of the past.”
What wrongs? Mauritius’s claim is painfully thin and only an anti-colonial ideologue like Starmer would fall for it.
Starmer also said that the base “cannot operate as it should without legal certainty.”
What on earth does that mean?
If he is arguing that Britain cannot have a military presence in any disputed territory, then we will have to get out of the Falklands, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar.
Indeed, according to his logic, we should pay Argentina, the Irish Republic and Spain to take these places off our hands.
That again illustrates the lunacy of Labour’s policy.
If we are to have any integrity left as a nation, this scheme must be reversed, otherwise we will be seen as an international laughing stock and a fickle ally.