Keir Starmer has been branded a ‘danger to the US’ as he faces a mounting backlash over his plans to hand over Chagos Islands sovereignty and cosy up to China.
The PM was accused of either ‘malice or incompetence’ in a brutal Wall Street Journal article accusing him of undermining the Special Relationship.
Sir Keir has been scrambling to forge strong ties with Donald Trump since his return to the White House, despite their wildly differing political views and senior ministers’ previous jibes at the president.
Downing Street has trumpeted ‘warm’ language between the leaders – but dates for a coveted visit to Washington have still not been finalised.
And an array of potential friction points have been emerging, ranging from Ukraine to tariffs that could damage the UK economy, and regulation of tech firms.
Fresh evidence of scepticism about Sir Keir on the other side of the Atlantic has come in an article by Dominic Green, a British academic and fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
The piece, which featured prominently in the prestigious newspaper this week, highlighted the Chagos Islands row, saying the UK was proposing to ‘sell the ground beneath the feet’ of the crucial Diego Garcia military base to Mauritius.
Keir Starmer was accused of either ‘malice or incompetence’ in a brutal Wall Street Journal article accusing him of undermining the Special Relationship
Sir Keir has been scrambling to forge strong ties with Donald Trump since his return to the White House , despite their wildly differing political views and senior ministers’ previous jibes at the president
Noting that the exact terms of the handover of the British territory are disputed, Mr Green warned that ‘any deal of this sort would pose great strategic threats to the US’ due to close ties between Mauritius and China.
‘They are waving a white flag on America’s behalf in a key theatre of operations,’ the article said.
‘This isn’t how a friendly government behaves. At the same time as Starmer speaks of the ‘special relationship’ between the US and UK and seeks a free-trade deal with President Trump, his party’s actions advance the opposite.
‘In about seven months in power, Labour has set a pro-China economic course, imposed sanctions on Israel, and backed the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.’
The Trump administration is currently reviewing the proposed deal, which has been widely criticised by MPs and Trump allies.
Before taking office, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it posed a ‘serious threat’.
The White House has now seemingly insisted on a representative joining the negotiations with Mauritius.
Ministers have been arguing that national security will be damaged if an agreement is not reached.
They insist that an advisory ruling of the International Court of Justice has thrown the legal status of the territory into doubt, opening the door for satellite communications to be compromised and neighbouring islands to be leased out to hostile powers.
But critics insist the ruling has no force and can simply be ignored.
Under the proposed treaty, Mauritius would be handed sovereignty of the archipelago despite it having never been under Mauritian control.
The UK would then pay at least £9billion over 99 years to lease back Diego Garcia, the largest of the Chagos atolls.
At present, a lease is not necessary because the archipelago is a British overseas territory.
The piece, which featured prominently in the prestigious newspaper this week, highlighted the Chagos Islands row, saying the UK was proposing to ‘sell the ground beneath the feet’ of the crucial Diego Garcia military base (pictured) to Mauritius
Sir Keir has also been pursuing better relations with China (pictured meeting Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in November)
Ministers were forced to deny that the deal could in fact be worth £18billion last month after the new Mauritian government claimed that it had squeezed more money out of Sir Keir’s government as talks stalled.
But they have refused to state publicly what the exact cost will be and have refused to rule out that the annual lease payments, £90million a year on average, are linked to inflation, which critics claim could send the cost soaring to above £50billion over the lifetime of the lease.
Mr Trump’s special envoy to the UK Mark Burnett was in Downing Street yesterday for an ‘officials only meeting’.
But a No10 spokesman would not say whether Mr Burnett met national security adviser Jonathan Powell, who helped broker the proposed Chagos deal.
