By The Telegraph (World News) | Created at 2024-10-04 06:30:45 | Updated at 2024-10-07 18:19:43
3 days ago
Labour does not “seem to take the security of the West seriously” by handing over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg has warned.
The former Cabinet minister said that Sir Keir Starmer was giving over the Indian Ocean territory to a country “with whom we have a tricky relationship”.
The islands were British-owned from 1814 but have been signed away by the Government in a deal that it claimed would safeguard global security by ending a long-running dispute.
They include Diego Garcia, which hosts a strategically important US-UK military base.
Sir Jacob told GB News: “We lost a legal action and therefore the government entered into talks. But interestingly, when the Conservatives were in office, as these sorts of ideas were floated, they were being heavily shot down, not least by Conservative backbenchers.
“But Labour doesn’t seem to take the security of the West seriously.”
He added: “Tom Tugendhat has pointed out that there are a lot of other islands there and China might want to have a base. It might be quite attractive.
“And Mauritius is not just some small, minor, independent country. It’s an important ally of China that gets lots of money from China. So we’re actually handing something over to people who, it would be wrong to call enemies of ours, but with whom we have a tricky relationship.”
