Boris Johnson has slammed the Chagos Island decision (Image: GB News)
Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to give up the Chagos Islands has made Britain look “weak” and “pathetic”, has warned.
The former Prime Minister said the Labour leader believes it will “buy us influence” on the global stage.
But he blasted that line of thinking, adding that Britain’s adversaries “think, why would you give up an asset like that?”
The Chagos Islands are home to the Diego Garcia military base, which is leased by the UK to the United States to support military operations in the Middle East.
Boris Johnson has said Britain’s adversaries will be laughing at the decision (Image: GB News)
Mr Johnson told Camilla Tominey on GB News: “People think it’ll make us seem better to the rest of the World, honourable, more decent.
“They don’t think that.
“No, no, no, no, no.
“They think Britain – weak. They think – pathetic. They think ‘why would you give up an asset like that?
“The idea that it buys us influence, that it buys us approval, that it is in the committee of civilised nations, it’s seen as generous.
“It’s rubbish.”
While the deal to hand back sovereignty included provisions for the UK and US to continue using Diego Garcia for 99 years, fears are intensifying Chinese intelligence agencies could exploit Beijing’s relationship with the Mauritians to use the surrounding islands to monitor the base and British and American assets.
But Mr Johnson blasted: “[It’s] a key component of this Anglo-American alliance, one of the things that we bring to the table.
“It has been for decades.
“Why are we trading it away?
“It’s the wrong thing to do. With the best will in the World, Mauritius is a great place, wonderful country, wonderful people, if you hand over sovereignty to another jurisdiction, we don’t know who is ultimately going to be pulling the strings.
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“Terrible, terrible idea geo-strategically.
“The thing that I really object to is, the left liberal view that by, kind of surrendering on former colonial stuff, you kind of win points.”
Prime Minister Sir defended giving up UK control of the Chagos Islands on Friday, and said the agreement with Mauritius over the remote archipelago would achieve the “single most important thing” of securing the long-term future of a joint US-UK military base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands.
But shadow foreign secretary Andrew Mitchell said the last Conservative Government would not have done the same deal.
Mr Mitchell told Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips programme: “The Government hasn’t told us the terms of this deal. I was obviously involved within the Foreign Office in the earlier negotiation rounds. It wasn’t my ministerial role but I was aware of what was happening.
“This is definitely – from what we have seen – not the deal the last Conservative government would have done.”
Pressed on the ‘ role starting the Chagos negotiations, Mr Mitchell replied: “Starting the negotiations is not the same as concluding them and from what I’ve seen this is definitely not a deal either (former foreign secretaries) David Cameron or indeed would have done and we need to see the terms that they’re offering.
“We need to know about what protection there is against Chinese encroachment into the archipelago, we need to know what money is being provided by the British taxpayer. We need to probe the terms of the lease, after all, the lease in Hong Kong wasn’t what we had hoped.
“And we need to do all those things and the right place to do them is in the House of Commons, and His Majesty’s Opposition will put down tomorrow an urgent question in the House of Commons if there isn’t a statement from the Government so that we can probe the terms of this.
“But from what we have seen so far, and by the way, it should’ve been announced in the House of Commons which is the right place to do these things, from what we’ve seen so far, this looks like a bad deal for Britain.”