David Vance SubstackRead More
It would be funny if it wasn’t also tragic. The sight of a British Prime Minister being humiliated to the world by President Trump is one that I understand but take little pleasure in. You see Starmer should NEVER have listened to his pal Lord Harmer and agreed to betray the Chagos Islands. Now the sh*t has hit the fan!
You can it 4D chess or whatever you want, but Starmer is being totally outmanoeuvred and simultaneously insulted by the US President. Rightly so!
Starmer’s incredibly bad deal to hand over the Chagos islands to China-controlled Mauritius is incomprehensibly bad, costly and strategically inept. He’s even been having trouble getting it through the House of Lords and now Trump piles in on top of these woes.
Reform and the Conservatives oppose the Deal and now they have an ally in the form of President Trump.
You might ask WHY Starmer made this surrender of these islands such a priority, after all it’s not exactly what people are talking about down the pub.
Well, in 2019, the International Court of Justice gave an advisory opinion that the separation of Chagos from Mauritius was unlawful and that the UK should end its administration “as rapidly as possible,” reinforcing the view that decolonisation had not been completed lawfully. The UN General Assembly followed with a resolution urging the UK to withdraw from the islands. Starmer and Hermes, being acolytes of this “International Law based system” felt obliged to win brownie points by going along with this. The wishes of the Chagossians were not taken into consideration so the people who actually LIVE there are deemed irrelevant by Starmer.
Trump makes the even bigger point – this spineless surrender is seen as weakness. China sees it. Trump sees it. Starmer is unwilling to see it.
The question is what happens next? Can Trump escalate this further?
Just how inept is this Labour Government?
