The Chagos betrayal proves Labour is lying about public spending
Thanks to the dogged reporting of this newspaper we now know that the sordid Chagos deal will, by the Government Actuary Department's admission, cost British taxpayers no less than £34.7 billion. That is more than ten times the figure originally touted by the Prime Minister. Even by Rachel Reeves's standards that makes for a staggering rounding error. I'm afraid it really confirms the Government's prior public statements on the costs of the deal were never anything more than a pack of lies.
I should know: I've tried to obtain these figures since at least 28 October last year, when I tabled a written question on the matter in Parliament: 'To ask His Majesty's Government how much they will pay per annum to lease Diego Garcia; and what is the expected total cost of the financial support that the UK has agreed to give to Mauritius, including any cost of annual payments.'
A few weeks later a non-answer arrived: 'Details of financial arrangements are held in the confidential exchange of letters that accompanies the draft treaty, which we do not plan to make public unless compelled to by parliament in due course'. What other gruesome financial revelations are buried within those letters, masked by endless gobbets of Whitehallese, shamelessly concealed from those of us who must pay the price? Those documents and the complete costs must now be published in full.
I honestly believe that if such an absurd and costly scandal as the Chagos debacle had been presided over by an administration other than this shameless Labour junta – impregnable with its planet-sized majority in the House of Commons – then the entire UK government would have been at serious risk of collapse. From the moment Starmer came to office, the Chagos subplot has been a mind-boggling story of deranged self-harm and ministerial insouciance at best, malfeasance and deeply suspect political conduct at worst.
It's patently obvious to any British taxpayer that £34.7 billion of our money would be much better spent on other things: 10 aircraft carriers for example, reversing the whole burden of recent hikes in business taxation, or increasing the schools budget by 50 per cent. So gargantuan is this quantum of public spending, if properly directed and managed, it could make a significant and lasting difference to daily life for working Brits.
Instead Labour is inexplicably and voluntarily gifting it to the state of Mauritius – not just now, but for decades to come. Much of the costs of this deal are simply an enormous appropriation of British taxpayer's money into the exchequer of a third country. It represents a tax cut for ordinary Mauritians of staggering proportions. In June, after Starmer's deal was signed, Mauritius's Prime Minister announced that 80 per cent of Mauritians will be taken out of income tax altogether.
Mauritius's sovereign debt is now effectively being paid down with the corporation tax and Vat bills of struggling plumbers in Leicestershire and shopkeepers in Cornwall. Labour's deal massively improved Mauritius's public sector debt position and will upgrade its sovereign credit rating. They say Keir Starmer isn't very good at his job, but he is, by some distance, the single most effective finance minister that Mauritius has ever had.
The Chagos scandal is the paradigmatic example of the governing 'lanyard class' failing to deliver for the people they are paid public sector salaries to serve. The UK is faced with spurious legal, territorial and financial claims all the time. It should dismiss them out of hand. The UK is constantly criticised in multilateral fora for an entire constellation of reasons – many of them entirely spurious. The duty of any British minister or official, of whatever political hue, should be to be able to cut through this nonsense and prioritise the UK national interest above all, especially when it comes to defence and security. No doubt an enormous golden statue of Keir Starmer soon to be erected in Port Louis will serve as a constant reminder of this elite failure.
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