Labour has been slammed after the eye-watering cost of their planned Chagos Island giveaway was finally revealed this afternoon.
Keir Starmer is hoping to hand over the strategic island, which include an essential UK-US military base, to Mauritius – a key ally of China.
On top of the bizarre foreign policy decision, the Government will then be forced to lease back the islands from Mauritius for a huge amount every year.
This afternoon the Financial Times finally revealed that British taxpayers are set to fork out an astonishing £90 million every year for 99 years.
This would add up to a whopping £8.9 billion over the course of the deal.
In a move that will further outrage taxpayers and opponents of the plan, the FT adds that Sir Keir is also offering to front load a large amount of this payment in order to get the deal over the line before Donald Trump’s inauguration on the 20th of January.
The deal was initially agreed with Mauritius before their general election, however weeks later the government was ousted and the new Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam said that Labour’s offer was not good enough.
He warned the generous offer “would not produce the benefits that the nation could expect”, meaning that most British politicians, the Mauritians, the Chagosians and the incoming Trump administration were all united in opposing Labour’s deal.
Responding to today’s cost revelations, former Tory MP Sir Simon Clarke described the sum as “staggering”.
He blasted: “It is staggering that our country, whose entire geopolitical outlook is about to face its most serious challenge since 1945 (and whose rapidly worsening public finances force ever tougher choices) is in a bidding war against ourselves to hand over our territory to a Chinese ally.”
Tory MSP Stephen Kerr slammed it as a “farce” and an “embarrassment”. He fumed: “A country like the UK desperately trying to give away an overseas territory and sweetening the deal to boot.”
“This isn’t soft power- it’s just soft.”
Reform UK’s former spokesman Gawain Towler tweeted: “An unserious act by an unserious Government. Why are they so desperate to do the wrong thing?”
“Why are they so keen to spaff £100’s of millions of taxpayer’s hard-earned in this way?
“What is driving this idiotic rush off a cliff?”
While Foreign Secretary David Lammy has insisted that the US political establishment under Joe Biden has welcomed the deal, it’s thought that China-sceptic Donald Trump will be much more opposed and could even veto it.
Yesterday Defence Secretary John Healey admitted that Britain has not had any discussions with the incoming Trump administration over the deal.
Mr Trump’s pick for National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, has been openly hostile to the deal, warning last year: “Should the UK cede control of the Chagos to Mauritius, I have no doubt that China will take advantage of the resulting vacuum.”