The Shadow Security Minister has rubbished claims that the UK deal with the Chagos Islands is necessary for national security.
Speaking on GB News, Tom Tugendhat said: “The idea that if we don’t hand over [the Chagos] islands that have been British for over 200 years, have never seriously been claimed by Mauritius – nobody pretends are part of Mauritius, except in recent years, that the international telecoms union, which is a UN agency and is under Chinese chairmanship, that they will somehow block the digital spectrum is complete nonsense. It’s absolutely nonsense.
“And these stories are being made up as though there’s some sort of secret security reason. No. This is a daft deal being done to assuage some sort of colonial guilt or something. It’s completely ridiculous.
“The reality is, this deal should never have started. Yes, I know it happened when we were in government. We shouldn’t have allowed it. David Cameron stopped it first of all, when he was Prime Minister; he didn’t allow the conversations to happen. They started when he came back as Foreign Secretary and he stopped them.
“The idea that these are somehow necessary for national security is rubbish. They undermine it.
“It’s like deciding to give away your house and then paying to rent it. It’s completely insane. You wouldn’t say that that made your living arrangements more secure. Your family wouldn’t thank you for it.
“You end up with less, and you’re paying for the privilege.
“I think that there’s a few people who have somehow convinced officials that this is the sort of thing you need to do in order to look good at the UN. Well, I’m sorry, the job of the British government is not to look good at the UN. The job of the British government is to defend the British people.
“Of course we’ve got to uphold the law. Of course, we’ve got to make sure we stand by our treaties. But this isn’t even doing that.
“The International Court of Justice is much more like marriage counselling.”
WATCH ABOVE.