Dominic Cummings has mocked Sir Keir Starmer over his Chagos “sell out” after unveiling a new Brexit-style £350million bus exposing Labour’s betrayal over Winter Fuel Payments.
Cummings, 53, who recently hinted about setting up his own Start-Up Party, issued a damning assessment of the Prime Minister’s expected deal with Mauritius for the Indian Ocean archipeago.
The former Vote Leave campaign director appeared to adapt the 2016 Brexit bus promising £350million to the NHS if Britons voted to leave the European Union.
Altering the message slightly, Cummings wrote: “We send Mauritius £350million a week, let’s fund Winter Fuel Payments instead.”
Dominic Cummings in the No10 rose garden
PA
In an accompanying tirade, the ex-No10 chief adviser added: “When we recapture No10 we’ll then retake Chagos, f**k Starmer’s treacherous sell out using his scum lawyer friends getting rich from betrayal – and investigations into everybody involved in the deal.
“We can roll that into the investigations into Grieve et al and the need for jail sentences for those who worked with foreign enemies to overturn British democracy.
“Plus Starmer is sending them £18 billion which is £350million per week. We took back control and spent our money on the NHS.
“Starmer is giving away control and sending foreigners 350million per week of your money. The system is working as intended.”
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An image of the mocked up Vote Leave bus
When asked who would be the ones to recapture No10, Cummings simply said: “Vote Leave.”
Cummings, who left No10 after losing a power-struggle for Boris Johnson’s ear against the ex-Prime Minister’s wife Carrie, often takes digs at both Labour and the Tories on social media.
He left alongside Johnson’s communications chief Lee Cain.
Cain, who also worked on the Vote Leave campaign, now heads up Charlesbye consultancy.
Sir Keir Starmer
PA
Other members of the Vote Leave campaign who worked in No10 include former data guru Ben Warner and ex-Brexit adviser Oliver Lewis.
Despite Cummings’s post on social media, Sir Keir Starmer’s Government today denied the cost of handing over the Chagos Islands could rise to £18billion.
Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam told his country’s National Assembly that he had rewritten the deal to ensure payments from the UK rose in line with inflation and to give his country an effective veto on extending the terms of the agreement beyond 99 years.
Ramgoolam also said that the previous deal, negotiated last year by his predecessor, had allowed the UK unilaterally to extend the lease on Diego Garcia for 40 years, but the new terms would now require Mauritian consent.
oris Johnson before he boards the Vote Leave campaign bus in Truro, Cornwall
PA
Denying the rise in cost, a Foreign Office spokesman said: “The figures being quoted are entirely inaccurate and misleading.
“There has been no change to the terms of extension in the treaty.
“The UK will only sign a deal that is in our national interest.”
During the 2016 Brexit referendum, Remainers accused Vote Leave campaign were accused of fuding the numbers on the iconic Brexit bus.
Downing Street former special advisor Dominic Cummings (left) and Director of Communications Lee Cain (right)PAThe figure, which was labelled a “scandal” by ex-Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, accounted for Britain’s gross contribution to the Brussels bloc.
A private prosecution was brought against Johnson by businessman Marcus Ball concerning the £350million figure.
The legal action was thrown out by the High Court after just five minutes of deliberation by two judges.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage distanced himself from the figure given it did not include Britain’s rebate or money paid back to the UK from the EU.
Keir Starmer
PA
Speaking shortly after the referendum, Farage said: “We have a £10billion, £34million a day featherbed, that is going to be free money that we can spend on the NHS, on schools, on whatever it is.”
The figure cited by Farage roughly equates to £200million instead of the £350million figure.
The total rises to almost £250million a week if Britain’s rebate is also included.
Cummings later admitted that “all our research and the close result strongly suggests” that Remain would have won without the advert.
“It was clearly the most effective argument, not only with the crucial swing [vote] but with almost every demographic,” he said in 2017.