Conservative MP Mark Francois has said the decision over the Chagos Islands will give the Chinese a veto in the future of the UK/US military base.
Speaking to GB News, Mark Francois said: “On a scale of one to 10, I’d rate it at about 13. This is absolute strategic madness. This was our base and Diego Garcia and the Chinese have a lot of influence over the government of Mauritius, to whom we’re planning to sign this over.
“They’ve invested about a billion dollars in Mauritius in recent years, and in effect, this will give the Chinese a veto over the future of that base. Either they might persuade the Mauritian government by stuffing their mouths with gold, to renege on the agreement, or the Mauritians might just let them build their own rival base, virtually next door.
“In military terms, this is madness. And when we were in government, the then Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, when they did what’s called the write round, when the Foreign Office proposed it last time and they asked the other involved government departments, ‘do they consent?’ Grant Shapps very firmly vetoed it. I remember speaking to him about it at the time.
“It is outrageous that with the house coming back on Monday anyway, the government chose to announce this when the house wasn’t sitting, quite deliberately. The speaker, privately, must be going completely bananas about it.
“We need to debate this in the House of Commons on Tuesday. That’s meant to be the fulcrum of the nation. Why have Labour given this away for nothing?
“Well, in fact, it’s worse than that, we’re gonna have to pay to lease it back. And by the way, who’s gonna pay the rent? Which government department will pay the rent? Will it be the MoD whose budget is massively stretched? Will it be the Foreign Office? It was the Foreign Office’s bright idea all along.
“We’re going to give this away for nothing, and then we’re going to pay for the privilege of renting back a base that we already owned.
“If [the Chinese] lean on the Mauritians, which I’m sure is what they’ll do, the Mauritians could rip up that agreement, and then what are we going to do? Exactly the reason why Labour have been so underhand about this, I think, is that there seem to be some close friendships involved in all of this.
“And we need to be able to have a debate in Parliament and ask questions about this and then force a vote on it.”
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