OPINION
Sir Keir Starmer should be speaking up (Image: PA Wire)
China is seemingly eyeing up another strategically important pocket of the Commonwealth yet no word is forthcoming from the PM on this disturbing development.
The Cook Islands – which covers a huge and strategic area of the Pacific and which is in “free association” with nearby New Zealand – is looking to sign a Joint Action Plan for Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with China.
The Cook Islands’ PM claims the deal is economic in nature, but its particulars are secret, and New Zealand is worried there might be hidden defence implications.
The Cook Islands may have hidden riches in its seabed for Beijing but – as with Commonwealth Realm, the Solomon Islands – the bigger riches may be defence-related as China looks to gain a Pacific toehold, possibly readying itself for a war over neighbouring Taiwan.
In the case of the Solomon Islands, there was a definite security feature to the proposed deal.
Now Labour is attempting to hand over the British territory of the Chagos Islands – over the heads of the native people – to Mauritius, a country which never controlled the territory to begin with.
Mauritius – another Commonwealth nation – is getting very close to China, and fears are mounting that in handing over the territory, Mauritius could allow Beijing to spy on the strategic Anglo-American defence base at Diego Garcia.
That base would be on a long lease to the West but – with Chinese muscle – who is to say if Mauritius would renege on the deal, while letting China spy on the territory itself?
Where is the PM in all this? True, the Cook Islands is more New Zealand’s concern but – having Charles III as head of state (like the Solomon Islands, by the way) – the UK has a clear interest in what happens there, especially as tensions mount in the region.
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Britain is already part of the AUKUS defence deal with Australia and the US, clearly to offset the threat from Communist China. Silence now, never mind giveaways of UK territories, is surely a huge blunder.
Sir should be speaking up and, at a minimum, tearing up the dreadful Chagos deal, something US President may force the PM’s hand on anyway.
Ultimately if the British Prime Minister won’t stand up for the UK and Commonwealth interest, who will exactly?