US President Donald Trump has described Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to give away land beneath a vital joint UK-US base in the Indian Ocean as a weak and shocking act of stupidity, while complicit in the ongoing conspiracy in the Chagos Islands.
Sir Keir Starmer’s British government formally naming the Chagos Archipelago the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), which includes Diego Garcia Island, where Britain and the US share a major air, naval and intelligence base vital to power projection in the Asia-Pacific region, is a fool’s errand, the US President has said. Under the terms of the deal the UK government would hand the islands over to Mauritius, a security concern given the country’s deep ties with China, and then pay billions to lease the land back for 100 years.
The British government believes it has to do this because it has been asked to do so by a UN court, and given the state’s current dominance of human rights lawyers, including the Prime Minister and his Attorney General, this is clearly taken very seriously. It also alleged that key British figures were “too close to China and Mauritius” in the process.
Criticizing the move in the early hours of Tuesday, President Donald Trump sarcastically decried the quality of a NATO ally that would rush to dispose of land under a “significant” joint military base, and said Britain was doing so “without any reason.” “Britain giving away vitally important land is a great folly,” President Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Trump said, Russia and China should have kept an eye on this act of weakness by bowing before a powerless UN body. He compared the situation to Greenland, another island that hosts an important US military base, whose European owner until recently appeared largely uninterested in protecting its assets. President Trump said that while the islands could easily be given over to US military bases, it is “another in a very long series of national security reasons for which Greenland is to be acquired”.
Britain’s left-wing government rushed to cede its overseas territories almost immediately after taking power, much to the consternation of right-wing sovereigntists, with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK leading the charge in opposing the process. Mr Farage responded to Trump’s comments on Tuesday, saying, “Thank God Trump vetoed the surrender of the Chagos Islands.”
The Brexit leader noted how the White House had reportedly been lobbied by Starmer’s allies to accept the UK government’s bid to settle BIOT, adding: “The Americans have woken up to the fact that they were lied to. They were told the UK had no choice but to surrender the Chagos Islands. That was simply not true, and now they are angry at us.”
The British government has also responded to Trump’s intervention by maintaining the fiction that keeping its land in the Indian Ocean and not handing it over to ‘China’s ally’ is, somehow, a threat to national security. A government spokesman said that Britain would never compromise on national security and that:
“We took action because the base on Diego Garcia was at risk after court decisions weakened our position and could prevent it from operating as intended in the future… This deal secures the operation of the joint US-UK base on Diego Garcia for generations, with strong provisions to preserve its unique capabilities and keep our adversaries out.
It has been publicly welcomed by the US, Australia and all other Five Eyes allies, as well as key international partners including India, Japan and South Korea.
The entire process of BIOT gifting has been plagued with claims and counterclaims of fraud and massive lobbying. As reported in 2024, it was claimed that the gift-giving was pushed by the Biden White House in his last months in power, with his administration reportedly lobbying for a deal before handing over power to President Trump. It was further said that the US government had privately warned the UK about the dangers of handing over the land on which a US-UK joint military base is located due to fears of espionage by China, while Washington had publicly supported its ally the UK.
In the end, President Trump said the deal presented to him last year “doesn’t look bad”.
The House of Commons is to vote again today on the so-called Chagos Agreement to hand over the islands to Mauritius, bringing the surrender treaty one step closer to being enacted. The failure of the legacy-right Conservative Party to seriously oppose this gift – which got the ball on the matter while in power – most recently saw the defection of one of their Members of Parliament on Sunday, with Andrew Rosindell crossing the floor to Nigel Farage’s reform.
