Keir Starmer accuses Trump of flip-flopping over Chagos deal

The Prime Minister has accused Donald Trump of flip-flopping over his support for Labour's controversial £30billion give-away of the Chagos Islands.

In comments that risk provoking the White House incumbent, Sir Keir Starmer suggested that the President's recent criticism of the deal is out of step with US intelligence officials and contradicts his own previous support.

Ministers are scrambling to salvage the deal after Mr Trump branded it an 'act of great stupidity' last week.

Legislation to implement the deal handing sovereignty to Mauritius after ministers acknowledged that US agreement was needed because of the impact on a joint US-UK base on Diego Garcia.

Speaking to reporters en route to China, Sir Keir revealed that British officials have held frantic talks with their US counterparts in recent days to try and salvage the deal.

But he stressed that the US intelligence and security agencies had looked into it in detail after last year's presidential inauguration and were happy with the arrangement for Britain to give control of the Indian Ocean islands to China ally Mauritius while leasing the crucial military base on it for up to £35billion.

His comments come amid growing hopes among opponents of the deal that it could be scuppered following President Trump's dramatic intervention.

The Tories pointed out it could violate a 60-year-old treaty with the US unless the White House agrees to back it.

Asked if he thought the President could pull the plug on the deal, Sir Keir told reporters: 'Well, I've obviously discussed Chagos with Donald Trump a number of times. 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.

'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.'

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No 10 insists the deal is needed to secure the future of the Diego Garcia base following legal rulings undermining the UK's claim to the territory. 

Under its terms, the UK will lease back Diego Garcia from Mauritius for 99 years.

The PM pointed out that key figures in the Trump administration had backed it last year, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying the agreement 'secures the long-term, stable, and effective operation of the joint US-UK military facility at Diego Garcia'.

Asked if he thought President Trump understands the deal, Sir Keir replied: 'Well, as I say, there was a three-month pause whilst his administration looked in detail at an agency level, because obviously this is about security and intelligence. 

'And so it was an agency review that was conducted in the US before they then concluded that it was a deal they wanted to support, did support and did so in very clear terms.'

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It is the latest difference in opinion between the two leaders, with Sir Keir last week vowing not to 'yield' to President Trump's threat to impose tariffs on Greenland's allies if they oppose his demands for the territory.

It came as the Conservatives urged ministers to abandon the deal.

Shadow Foreign Secretary Dame Priti Patel warned that ceding sovereignty to Mauritius would make it impossible for either the UK or the US to station nuclear missiles on Diego Garcia, because the state is signed up to a non-proliferation treaty.

Dame Priti told MPs: 'It's high time that the Prime Minister tore up this atrocious surrender treaty and put Britain's interests and our defence first and our security first and Britain's hard-pressed taxpayers first.'