Kemi Badenoch’s spokesman has admitted that she had not received an official briefing on the details of the Chagos deal before launching a blistering attack on Keir Starmer during PMQs based on incorrect information.
The Tory leader had accused the prime minister of “an immoral surrender” on the deeply controversial plan to hand over the Indian Ocean islands to Mauritius and spend billions leasing back the UK/US airbase on Diego Garcia.
But the prime minister retorted that if Ms Badenoch was not properly briefed then “she is not doing her job, she is not concerned about national security and she is not fit to be prime minister.”
Starmer was further boosted by an admission by the Mauritius prime minister Navin Ramgoolam that his suggestion the UK government had agreed to double the price lease back the UK/ US airbase to £18 billion was not correct.
And after PMQs, Ms Badenoch’s spokesman admitted she had not asked for or received a briefing on the deal even though one was available to her.
He said: “Kemi Badenoch sat in the Cabinet until six months ago, she talks to (former foreign secretary) James Cleverly, she knows the details behind this case.
"That does not preclude her from pointing out that spending £18 billion to give away our own territory is an utter disgrace."
The prime minister came under fire from Nigel Farage and Ms Badenoch over the deal, which critics have said compromises security and defence and comes at a huge cost.
At PMQs, Ms Badenoch said “when Labour negotiates, our country loses”, adding that the money being spent on the deal “belongs to our children and their children”.
And Reform UK leader Mr Farage questioned why 25,000 of his constituents in Clacton are having their winter fuel payments taken away while the government prepares to pay Mauritius up to £18 billion to lease back a key military base on the archipelago.
The Foreign Office has denied the deal with Mauritius will cost £18 billion, but declined to offer a figure.
The Conservatives and Mr Farage also highlighted the non-binding nature of the ruling from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Britain was illegally occupying the islands, home to the joint UK-US Diego Garcia base.
Ms Badenoch said Sir Keir was guilty of “an immoral surrender so north London lawyers can boast at their dinner parties”.
And Mr Farage said there is “no legal basis on which we have to give away the sovereignty of the Chagos islands”. “An advisory judgment from the ICC has no force of legal power whatsoever… America disregard it so much they're not even members of it,” he added.
Hitting back at critics of the deal, Sir Keir said: “This is a military base that is vital to our national security and international security. A number of years ago, the legal certainty of that base was thrown into doubt.
“Without legal certainty, the base cannot operate in practical terms as it should, that is bad for our national security, and it is a gift to our adversaries.”
Sir Keir said those raising questions about the necessity of the deal have not been briefed properly on it, pointing out that negotiations began under the previous Conservative government.
It came after shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel called on the prime minister to stop discussions over the Indian Ocean archipelago “full stop”.
Amid speculation a new version of the deal, which followed a change of government in Mauritius, could double the overall cost of the agreement, Ms Patel said it is “simply not right” to commit up to £18 billion at a time when pensioners have had their winter fuel payments scrapped and farmers are being hit with an inheritance tax raid.
“Quite frankly, we should stop this discussion full stop,” Ms Patel told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
She added: “It absolutely looks like a betrayal of the British people, a betrayal of our territory.”
Ms Patel said: “We should go back to base camp, look at the judgment and say there are other ways of doing this without just handing over a sovereign territory, and certainly without committing anything from £9 billion to £18 billion at a time when we constantly hear from the government there is a financial crisis here.”
Ms Patel’s intervention came after reports the UK could end up paying £18 billion instead of the original £9 billion under the original agreement to lease back Diego Garcia for 99 years. Unlike the original deal, which new Mauritian PM Navin Ramgoolam said was “not good enough”, there would also be no automatic extension mechanism after 99 years.
Her colleague, shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick, went further, describing Sir Keir as a “quisling”, a term for someone who collaborates with an occupying force in their own country. Mr Jenrick and Ms Patel were condemned for their comments by Brendan Cox, the husband of the murdered MP Jo Cox, who said: “Calling fellow MPs ‘quislings’ & ‘traitors’ isn’t just a pathetic, and painfully inauthentic, attempt to sound populist - it’s also dangerous.
“MPs know they are all at risk from violence, threats & even murder - yet Jenrick uses language that he knows will increase that threat.”
And her comments came amid growing opposition to the deal in Sir Keir’s cabinet, with the PM’s top team reportedly increasingly concerned about the optics of handing huge sums to Mauritius to give up control of the islands while Britain’s public finances are squeezed.
Despite disputing the £18 billion figure, and numerous pledges to publish the cost of the deal by ministers in the Commons, officials would not commit to going ahead with that pledge.
The reports followed an answer in the Mauritian parliament by Mr Ramgoolam where he stated that an agreement would be signed between the UK and Mauritius regarding Chagos.
However, he added that the British are still waiting for the approval of the Trump administration.
And, in a blow to Sir Keir’s hopes of passing the agreement in the coming weeks, a White House spokesperson told The Independent that President Trump has not given it his blessing.
There are serious concerns about the top secret joint US/UK airbase on Diego Garcia and the potential for Chinese interference if the UK gives up sovereignty on the islands.
And while the Biden administration had been happy to support the old deal struck last year to hand over the islands, Trump has been taking advice from Brexiteers and right-wingers in the UK to veto the agreement.
A White House official said: “The Trump administration continues to review the British government’s agreement with Mauritius and potential implications for Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia.”
It is understood that new secretary of state Marco Rubio and the UK foreign secretary David Lammy are due to meet about the issue at a conference in Munich next week. In their first conversation, Mr Rubio made it clear that he was concerned about Chinese interference on the islands. The subject could also come up when Sir Keir meets Mr Trump in the coming weeks.
Speaking for the government on Wednesday morning, Steve Reed said the deal on the table “secures the future of that military base”.
The environment secretary said: “When this government came in, negotiations were already underway about the future of that base, its future was not secure.
“Our priority is security, so those negotiations continue.”
