Number 10 will be nursing its whiplash this evening as Donald Trump once again throws a diplomatic hand grenade into the UK’s Chagos deal with Mauritius.
Posting on Truth Social, Donald Trump implored Sir Keir Starmer to scrap the deal, saying: “DO NOT GIVE AWAY DIEGO GARCIA!”
In his long post online, the US president claimed the prime minister is “losing control” of the military base in the Indian Ocean, and that the deal would be “a blight” on the UK.
It came just a day after the US government released a statement in which it said it “supports the decision of the United Kingdom to proceed with its agreement with Mauritius concerning the Chagos archipelago”.
Number 10 and the Foreign Office will be asking itself what has changed in the space of 24 hours.
UK government backs ‘crucial’ deal
Pushing back on Trump’s latest change of heart, a Foreign Office spokesperson said: “The deal to secure the joint UK-US military base on Diego Garcia military is crucial to the security of the UK and our key allies, and to keeping the British people safe.
“The agreement we have reached is the only way to guarantee the long-term future of this vital military base.”
So what now?
The government clearly did not see this latest Trump intervention coming, but leaders are often judged not by the events that happen on their watch but how they deal with such events.
Interestingly, only last night Starmer and Trump held a bilateral phone call – but when Number 10 released a readout of that meeting, there was no mention of the Chagos deal.
Donald Trump and Sir Keir Starmer at a Chequers news conference in September. Pic: Reuters
‘Utter humiliation’
Opposition parties on the right are celebrating Trump’s comments as a win for their campaigning.
Shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel called this “an utter humiliation” for the prime minister, arguing the deal is undermining the UK’s relationship with the US and must be junked.
And the Tory leader Kemi Badenoch mirrored previous comments made last month by the US president, calling the deal an “act of stupidity” and self-sabotage.
Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage claims the deal negotiated by the government risks alienating the US and has also called for the deal to be scrapped.
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Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey used the fallout as an opportunity to continue his attacks on Trump, insisting the US is no longer an ally the UK can rely on, and we must cosy up to our neighbours in Europe.
Rather awkwardly the foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, is in the US this week and will be having meetings with Trump’s top team in Washington DC.
Despite being blindsided by the persistent flip-flopping of the US administration’s position on the Chagos deal, it could be a fortuitous opportunity to plead the UK government’s case directly to her counterpart Marco Rubio.
The Conservatives and Reform will be hoping Trump’s latest intervention may be able to push the prime minister into rethinking this deal, or at least cause him enough political difficulty that the deal is ratified under a dark cloud.
Starmer will need to bring the US president back from the brink, or we could be seeing U-turn number 16 from Labour.
