Starmer: most important thing about Chagos Islands agreement was securing future of base
Keir Starmer has defended the government’s decision over the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands by saying it had been welcomed with “warm words” by the US.
Speaking at an event where he had launched investment in green technology, the prime minister said:
The single most important thing was ensuring that we had a secure base, the joint US-UK base; hugely important to the US, hugely important to us. We’ve now secured that and that is why you saw such warm words from the US yesterday.
The move to hand sovereignty of Britain’s last African colony has been criticised by prominent figures in the Conservative party leadership race, and by MPs from Reform UK. James Cleverly decried it as “weak”, while Rupert Lowe called it a “capitulation”. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has called for an immediate debate when parliament sits on Monday.
Earlier on Friday Jonathan Powell, who was leading negotiations for the new government with Mauritius over the islands, also defended the deal, saying that the agreement had been reached in lockstep with the US, and the final treaty “secured all of their red lines.”
The process of negotiating with Mauritius took 13 rounds, 11 of which were held under the previous Tory administration who started the process.
Key events
Scotland’s first minister has not ruled out the possibility of calling an early election if he can’t get the SNP’s budget passed.
PA Media reports that speaking on the BBC’s Political Thinking podcast, SNP leader John Swinney said:
You need 65 votes to pass a budget, we don’t have that number of votes in our party, so we’ve got to get others to vote for us. So we’ll work to create a set of propositions that will command support, but that puts as much emphasis on other political parties and what they’re prepared to support.
Since the breakdown of the Bute House Agreement earlier this year the Green party in Scotland have not been formally backing the SNP in Holyrood. Swinney said the public expect an election in 2026, and in the meantime “I think they expect politicians … to get on with taking the decision to govern.”
He said his was a message for everybody, because “there’s no hiding place for any political party. If we don’t have a budget in place on 1 April, hospitals can’t get their budgets, schools can’t get their budgets, benefits can’t be paid, all sorts of things like that.”
Former Conservative MP Andrea Jenkyns has called Tory leadership candidate James Cleverly “stupid” for opening up negotiations over the future of the Chagos Islands, and also suggested that the previous Conservative government had tried to keep negotiations “hush hush”.
The long-running international dispute, which involved several cases in UK and international courts going back to 2000, has led to an agreement announced yesterday which will see Mauritius gain sovereignty of the islands while the UK and US retain the use of their joint base.
Speaking to GB News, Jenkyns said:
I wasn’t even aware [of the discussions over the Chagos Islands] so I don’t know if that was kept hush hush at the time from when I was an MP. But had I known that at the time, I would have spoken out about it.
I think, how stupid of James Cleverly [to have] started those talks as well, especially if you look at the moment, what’s going on globally. These strategic locations, these allies, we need to be working together, not handing it back and leaving them open to the likes of China jumping in there. So I’d say, whether it’s James or Labour, it is a ridiculous thing to do.
In November 2022, while Jenkyns was MP for Morley and Outwood and just after she had left Boris Johnson’s government as Liz Truss became prime minister, the then-foreign secretary James Cleverly said in a written ministerial statement that the UK had agreed to open negotiations with Mauritius over the future handover of the Chagos Islands.
Cleverly issued a second ministerial written statement in March 2023 about the progress in the negotiations after three rounds had been completed. Cleverly yesterday described the outcome of the negotiations, which included a final two rounds conducted by the present Labour administration, as “weak”.
The Labour government has said the deal protects UK interests by securing the use of the military base there for 99 years, and has said the US has also welcomed it warmly.
Boris Johnson says Chagos Islands deal is ‘sheer political correctness’ and says islands are ‘a long way away’ from Mauritius
Disgraced former prime minister Boris Johnson, currently out and about promoting his memoirs, has weighed in on the Chagos Islands while speaking to Camilla Tominey on GB News.
He decried the agreement as “sheer political correctness” and “a desire to look like the good guys … a desire to look as though we’re unbundling the last relics of our empire.”
Johnson said:
It’s a bad idea in hard geopolitical terms, because the base in Diego Garcia is of huge strategic importance for the US, for the west, and it’s a key component of the Anglo-American alliance. It’s one of the things we bring to the table, has been for decades. It’s completely the wrong thing to do.
Jonathon Powell, who has been leading the negotiations for the new Labour government, has said that it secures the future of the base for the next 99 years at a time when the UK’s continued possession of its last African colony was looking increasing legally tenuous. The negotiations were started under the previous Tory government. Former prime minister Liz Truss has said it was Johnson who asked her to start the process.
Johnson also cast aspersions on why the deal had been done with Mauritius. He told viewers of GB News:
It’s crazy. I urge viewers of GB News to get out your maps, get out your atlases. Check out the Chagos islands, see where they are and see where Mauritius is. It’s a long way away.
The Chagos Islands are about 9,350km (5,800 miles) from London.
Starmer: most important thing about Chagos Islands agreement was securing future of base
Keir Starmer has defended the government’s decision over the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands by saying it had been welcomed with “warm words” by the US.
Speaking at an event where he had launched investment in green technology, the prime minister said:
The single most important thing was ensuring that we had a secure base, the joint US-UK base; hugely important to the US, hugely important to us. We’ve now secured that and that is why you saw such warm words from the US yesterday.
The move to hand sovereignty of Britain’s last African colony has been criticised by prominent figures in the Conservative party leadership race, and by MPs from Reform UK. James Cleverly decried it as “weak”, while Rupert Lowe called it a “capitulation”. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has called for an immediate debate when parliament sits on Monday.
Earlier on Friday Jonathan Powell, who was leading negotiations for the new government with Mauritius over the islands, also defended the deal, saying that the agreement had been reached in lockstep with the US, and the final treaty “secured all of their red lines.”
The process of negotiating with Mauritius took 13 rounds, 11 of which were held under the previous Tory administration who started the process.
Prime minister Keir Starmer, asked by the media about political donations and gifts, said “I’m not sure there’s anything I can add to the very many answers I’ve given in the last week or two,” and said that his decision to repay money for some gifts was a personal one.
He told reporters:
We’re going to draw up some principles so that everyone can see the basis on which donations can be accepted. We are working on that.
Until they are drawn up I decided to repay so that any future activities, of me or anybody else, are in accordance with whatever the new principles are.
That is my personal decision, I am not saying others should do the same.
Starmer says he is committed to a free vote on assisted dying and the government will remain neutral
During the media questions after his announcement of investment into carbon capture technology, Keir Starmer was asked about his position on assisted dying. The government is proposing to put a bill before parliament about assisted dying in England and Wales.
He didn’t elaborate on his own views, but told reports:
I made a promise to Esther Rantzen before the election that we would provide time for a debate and a vote on assisted dying, and it will be a free vote.
And obviously that opportunity has now arisen, and I’m very pleased that I’m able, as it were, to make good on the promise I made to Esther.
The government will be neutral on this, as you know, but I did make that commitment to a free vote, and I’m sticking to that commitment.
Starmer defends investment in carbon capture in face of environmental campaigners’ doubts
Asked by the Guardian’s Richard Partington whether carbon capture is an effective technology, Keir Starmer the prime minister said:
It absolutely is the right investment. It’s very important in relation to our climate obligations, and that’s why those leading the discussions in climate say this is the right thing to do.
It is a recognition that when it comes to cement, to glass, to other vital industries, there’s an element of carbon, that if we’re to support those industries going forward we need to find a way of capturing that and ensuring that through initiatives like this, we can continue with glass production, we can continue with cement production.
And therefore this has sort of got a double benefit, if you like. We’ve got the skills and the jobs and the potential to get ahead on carbon capture. That is a good thing in its own right. But secondly, it supports glass, it supports cement, it supports those industries where there’s always going to be an element of carbon.
Starmer: the new political divide between Labour and Tories is ‘investment or decline’
Keir Starmer has said the big political divide is now the choice between investment with Labour or decline with the Tories.
He said “We’ve had the decline bit for 14 years. We were elected for change, and that change is investment.”
The prime minister said:
That is the new political divide. It’s how we take our country forward, and that is why this [carbon capture investment] is so important. You don’t get investment just like talking about investment, you get investment by partnering with business, by stabilising the economy, by showing you’ve got a long term strategy, and having the ambition to take the plan forward, put the money down and invest in the future.
Starmer continued:
Anybody who’s spoken to an investor in the last five or ten years and asked what has put you off investing in Britain, you will have had the same answer as I gave repeatedly before the election. It’s the instability, it’s the chaos, it’s the ever changing minister behind the desk. There was no long term strategy.
He added
We’ve got to take difficult decisions in the budget in relation to the missing money from the last government, really tough decisions like, for example, the winter fuel payment. That is to stabilise the economy. Because I’m absolutely convinced that only by stabilising the economy.
Starmer: investment in carbon capture technology is ‘national renewal in action’
Prime minister Keir Starmer has said that today’s investment announcement shows “the politics of national renewal in action”.
He told an audience at a glass manufacturing factory “we’re fixing the foundations and providing a long term industrial strategy.”
Describing his work with families of coal miners as a lawyer when the industry was being closed down by the Conservative government of the time, Starmer said:
I worked with families and communities who were going to lose their jobs in a really important industry, and I therefore know first hand what this country lost when we ended coal in that way. Because we lost jobs, we lost communities, we lost a way of life. I think we lost dignity, and we also, I think, lost identity.
He said that is why his government is investing to create jobs as the country decarbonises. He said:
We are the first industrial nation. That’s who we are as a country. It’s our story. A source of pride that this country, our country, communities like here, changed the world. And that what is made here matters.
You can’t take that away from people without a plan to replace it. It’s like losing a part of yourself, a missing limb, an open wound, a heart ripped out of the nation.
He said the investment today was “not just a moment of industrial renewal, it’s also a line in the sand. We’re going to do things differently.”
Prime minister Keir Starmer is speaking. The “my dad was a toolmaker” anecdote is deployed again, but this time Starmer elaborates slightly (and somewhat acknowledges it has become his political cliche), saying:
I’ve said many times my dad was a tool maker. He worked in a factory. But that matters to me, because until I went off to college, I didn’t even know any working environment other than a factory.
He says it is important to visit places around the country because “for me there’s no substitute for coming to places where you and others work, and getting a sense myself of what you do, how skilled it is, and how important it is to our country.”
Starmer says the investment isn’t about “the numbers flying about”, it is “about making sure that there are thousands of people like you with skilled, good, secure jobs that give you the security and the dignity and the pride in the work that you do.”
He says:
What matters to me and to us as a government is what a difference it makes to your lives and the lives of other people who are doing jobs like you, not just now and next year, but into the future. And making sure that we have you and them in our mind’s eye when we make our decisions, because politics is about who are you thinking about when you’re making your decisions.
The chanceller has been speaking. Rachel Reeves said “carbon capture technology is not just about cleaning up our industry and our energy sector. It is a massive opportunity to attract investment and create thousands of skilled jobs paying good wages.”
She said “We’re not just turning the page on old industries. We’re writing a new chapter of innovation and resilience, and we’re doing that together.
She said:
We’re removing the barriers that stop investment so that we can get Britain building again. And our first international investment summit will take place in just ten days time to bring new investment and more opportunities to the UK. That’s the change that this government is offering.
The prime minister is next.
Labour will not blow UK’s chance for industrial success, says Miliband
Ed Miliband starts by paying tribute to coal workers over the decades who “powered our country for more than a century” saying “we owe them a huge debt.”
The energy secretary of state says “a new era begins, carbon capture and storage, a new industry, a new generation of good jobs in our industrial heartlands, a new route to economic prosperity and energy security.”
He says in the past there were “fits and starts … dither and delay” but in just three months the new government has “turned promise into reality.”
He claims the technology has “the capacity to store 200 years of our carbon emissions.”
He finishes by saying:
Too often in the past Britain has blown its chance of industrial success. We say today, not this time. This government is committed to use every lever to win for Britain. This government is committed to a proper industrial policy. And this government has a chancellor who understands the importance of public and private investment to build the future Britain deserves.
He introduces Rachel Reeves to talk next.
Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and Ed Miliband are all at this event at Encirc Glass. Ed Miliband is going to speak first.
You will be able to watch prime minister Keir Starmer make his speech in this video feed …
Starmer to give speech launching government carbon capture investment plans
Keir Starmer is to give a speech announcing government investment in green technologies in Merseyside this morning. The government has announced plans to commit almost £22bn over 25 years to fund carbon capture and storage projects.
Ahead of the announcement, Starmer said: “Today’s announcement will give industry the certainty it needs – committing to 25 years of funding in this groundbreaking technology – to help deliver jobs, kickstart growth, and repair this country once and for all.”
Richard Partington is there for the Guardian, and you will be able to watch a video stream on the live blog. I will bring you any key lines that emerge.
The Green Party of England and Wales have been celebrating this morning. A byelection victory for Lancaster city council has made them the largest party there.
🎉 Green WIN! 🎉
🌹 to 💚
💚 Congratulations to Andrew Otway on being elected in Scotforth East with 57.8% of the vote and to @NorthLancsGreen on becoming the largest party on Lancaster City Council! pic.twitter.com/kGE2SIwPq1
— The Green Party (@TheGreenParty) October 4, 2024
MP Siân Berry has also been congratulating her parliamentary colleague Carla Denyer, who picked up an award as politician of the year last night.
Reform UK MPs are making noise on social media about the Chagos Islands agreement with Mauritius this morning. Leader Nigel Farage, the MP for Clacton, has demanded “Parliament must have a debate and a vote on the surrender of the Chagos Islands when it returns on Monday,” adding “No government should be able to surrender sovereignty without debate, especially as this was not in the Labour manifesto.”
Rupert Lowe, MP for Great Yarmouth, described it as “capitulation” and said “I have asked the Foreign Office to explain itself – rushing it through during recess was disgraceful.”
There have been 13 rounds of negotiations with Mauritius to reach the deal, with the process started when James Cleverly was foreign secretary under the previous Conservative government.
Kiran Stacey
Kiran Stacey, Guardian political correspondent, reports on Ed Miliband having to respond to questions about a claim Labour was trying to charge businesses up to £30,000 for breakfast with business minister Jonathan Reynolds:
The energy secretary defended his cabinet colleague on Friday, saying he knew nothing about the breakfast, details of which were revealed by the Sun on Thursday night. Labour officials say the business breakfast is not currently going ahead.
Asked about the breakfast with Reynolds, Ed Miliband said: “Don’t do it again, is my message.” He insisted Reynolds had no plans to attend the event, but added: “The answer is – whether it is me or Jonathan Reynolds – it is not about paying to have access. That is not what we are about, no.”
A Labour spokesperson said: “The business secretary isn’t involved in this, was completely unaware, and isn’t attending.”
Read more of Kiran Stacey’s report here: ‘Don’t do it again,’ Miliband tells Labour over £30,000 breakfast with minister
One of the criticisms from Conservatives over the Chagos Islands deal with Mauritius is that it potentially allows China scope to have access to the strategically important islands.
This morning, for example, Iain Duncan Smith, former Conservative leader and the MP for Chingford and Woodford, said:
The Labour government’s move to relinquish sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius is astonishing. At the heart of this agreement lies the real threat from China and we have a government of Mauritius that is very pro-China.
If China gets involved with Mauritius, I cannot see how you can continue to use that place as it is now, or how the Americans can either.
This is a huge mistake – a fatal mistake. We’re the worst country in the world for understanding our strategic arrangements – make no mistake, the free world will be in danger. The whole thing is a shambolic mess and I’m as much blaming the previous Conservative government for this as Labour.
Jonathon Powell, who played a leading role in concluding the agreement, wasn’t having any of this sort of criticism when he was talking on Times Radio earlier this morning. Powell said:
When you come to see the detailed treaty – which really quite long – along with the exchanges of letters, you’ll see that this idea of a Chinese base, it can’t happen, won’t happen.
And also, the fact that some of these papers have suggested that Mauritius is an ally of China could hardly be further from the truth. Mauritius is very, very close indeed to India, and the Indians also welcomed this agreement because they see it as so important for security in the Indian Ocean.
Mauritius is one of only two countries in Africa that’s not a member of China’s belt and road initiative. So this notion that somehow we’ve given the Chagos Islands to an ally of China is rubbish. And anyway, the negotiations were started by the previous Tory government.
Mauritius does have an agreement in place to join the belt and road initiative at a later date, and has had a free trade agreement with China in place since 2021.
