Donald Trump’s own spies signed off on Britain’s surrender of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, Sir Keir Starmer has claimed.The Prime Minister defended his decision to hand over ownership of the British Indian Ocean Territory, including the United States air base on Diego Garcia, to the East African nation at a cost of more than £100million a year.Sir Keir backed his deal, despite it being described as an “act of idiocy” by the US President amid the crisis over his attempts to take over Greenland, an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark.Speaking to reporters en route to Beijing, the PM said: “I’ve obviously discussed Chagos with Donald Trump a number of times.
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“It has been raised with the White House at the tail end of last week, over the weekend and into the early part of this week.”He added: “The position, as you know, is that when the Trump administration came in, we paused for three months to give them time to consider the Chagos deal, which they did at agency level.“And once they’d done that… they were very clear in the pronouncements about the fact that they supported the deal and they were announcements made by, I think the defence secretary, from memory. “It was also backed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Mr Trump himself, Sir Keir claimed.Last night, it was revealed storage of nuclear weapons at Diego Garcia will be prohibited should the Chagos Islands Bill be enacted into law.The confirmation by Paul Berenger, Mauritius’s deputy prime minister, contradicts assurances from Labour ministers “full operational autonomy of the base” would remain intact under Sir Keir’s deal.Shadow Foreign Secretary Dame Priti Patel condemned the restriction on nuclear weapons storage as having “serious implications for our security and that of our allies”.But a House of Lords debate on the bill scheduled for this week was postponed after Conservatives warned the deal could breach a separate 1966 treaty between the UK and US.LATEST DEVELOPMENTSChagos Islands base to be BANNED from storing nuclear weapons as Labour promises of military freedom ‘completely compromised’Labour warned it cannot force through Chagos Islands surrender deal for weeks in blow to Keir StarmerDonald Trump has legal power to BLOCK Chagos surrender deal, Labour admitsThat six-decade-old agreement stipulates Diego Garcia must remain under British sovereignty.Should Mr Trump decline to amend this treaty, the entire Chagos arrangement would collapse.Conservative MPs have also questioned whether American allies would permit the handover to proceed, noting China, Russia and Iran, all of which maintain partnerships with Mauritius, have welcomed the agreement.Former Security Minister Tom Tugendhat MP wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: “Mauritius is making their position clear. Starmer isn’t. It’s time to rethink.”Our Standards:
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