President Trump described Keir Starmer’s Chagos deal as an “act of GREAT STUPIDITY.” He’s right.
The deal involves Britain handing over sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, a country with close ties to China, in exchange for leasing back Diego Garcia, a strategically important military base, for £34 billion.
The deal was made without a democratic mandate, public debate or voter approval, and undermines British and American security in the Indo-Pacific.
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Trump is Right: Keir Starmer’s Chagos deal is an act of GREAT STUPIDITY
By Matt Goodwin, 21 January 2026
President Trump does not mince his words. And this week, when he described Keir Starmer’s Chagos deal as an “act of GREAT STUPIDITY,” he was absolutely right. In fact, it is hard to think of a more accurate description.
Because what the British government has attempted to do over the Chagos Islands is not merely incompetent or naïve. It is a textbook example of how a ruling class that no longer believes in its own nation ends up surrendering power, sovereignty, territory and leverage – while wrapping the whole thing in the language of international law, human rights and moral virtue.
Let’s be clear about what Starmer’s Labour agreed to.
Under this deal, Britain would hand over sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius – a country with close ties to Communist China – while permanently exiling the Chagossian people from their homeland.
In return, the British taxpayer would be forced to pay tens of billions of pounds – £34 billion to be exact – to lease back Diego Garcia, one of the most strategically important military bases on earth, which underpins both British and American security in the Indo-Pacific.
Nobody voted for this. It was not in the Labour Party’s manifesto. There was no public debate. No democratic mandate.
Just a quiet surrender, negotiated by lawyers and diplomats who appear to believe that Britain’s interests and history are something to be apologised for.
It may well be the worst deal any British government has struck in modern history.
It is also hard to avoid the conclusion that senior UK officials deliberately misled their American counterparts. Last year, they were running around America proclaiming that Britain had “no choice” but to hand over the islands. They insisted that a ruling by the International Court of Justice made the deal unavoidable. That resistance was futile. That sovereignty was no longer ours to defend. But this was, quite simply, nonsense.
The Court’s ruling in question was advisory, not binding. It did not compel Britain to surrender anything (much like Starmer’s Labour was not compelled to grant China a Mega Embassy in the heart of London but decided to do so anyway, once again undermining our national security and sovereignty).
And yet this legal fiction was repeated again and again by British officials – chief among them Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s former fixer and now Keir Starmer’s National Security Adviser – in an effort to bounce the Trump administration and our most important ally into accepting the fait accompli.
At the time, it worked. In May last year, when Britain signed the deal, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio even issued a statement welcoming what he called a “monumental agreement.” But then something changed.
When Nigel Farage, leader of Reform, started to raise the issue directly with senior figures in Washington, it became clear that the penny was starting to drop.
Senior Republicans began to point out that Diego Garcia is America’s most important overseas military base. Without it, US power projection in the Indo-Pacific is severely weakened. Others started to point to the obvious problem: Britain handing sovereignty of the base to a China-friendly state made no strategic sense whatsoever.
And then came the realisation that the legal justification for the deal was built on sand. The International Court of Justice (“ICJ”) judge whose opinion Labour leaned on was Chinese. She later backed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Her judgment aligned neatly with Beijing’s long-standing effort to weaken Western military infrastructure. Suddenly, the idea that Britain had been acting out of legal necessity looked more like geopolitical self-harm.
Which is why Trump’s intervention matters so much.
When he went on Truth Social and denounced the Chagos deal as being done “FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER,” he wasn’t posturing. He was stating a fact. The deal does nothing for Britain. Nothing for America. And nothing for the Chagossian people.
Indeed, the bitter irony is that a Labour Party that is utterly obsessed with “human rights” has completely ignored the most fundamental right of all: self-determination.
Indeed, isn’t it ironic that while Starmer’s Labour now preaches about the importance of respecting the rights and views of the people of Greenland (which I agree with), they were more than happy to sell the rights and views of the Chagossians down the river when it suited them and their international elite cronies?
The Chagossians were forcibly removed from their islands in the 1960s. They have been treated appallingly ever since – first by Britain, then by Mauritius. And yet this deal would lock in their exile permanently, while transferring their homeland to a government that has never represented them.
There is a better solution. Allow the Chagossians to return. Allow them to settle. Let them build a future through tourism and environmental stewardship. Protect Diego Garcia as a joint UK-US military facility. Preserve both security and justice. But that would require a government that is actually capable of thinking in terms of national interest. And that is precisely what Starmer’s Labour Party cannot do.
This whole episode, of course, exposes a deeper truth about the modern Labour movement. It does not believe in borders. It does not believe in sovereignty. And it does not believe Britain has interests of its own that must be defended – only obligations to international institutions, foreign courts and abstract moral causes.
We were saved from the consequences of this worldview not by Westminster, but by Washington. So let us hope, in the days ahead, we will be saved once again.
And there is one final irony here, too.
When he was foreign secretary, David Lammy himself admitted that the Chagos deal could only proceed with American consent. “Of course,” he said, “they’ve got to be happy with the deal or there is no deal.”
Well, America is not happy. And if Labour keeps its word – a big if – then this shameful surrender should now be dead. Indeed, it should never have been contemplated in the first place …
[Related:
- The lawyer friend of Starmer at the centre of Chagos deal, The Telegraph, 15 January 2025
- Starmer may be a hero to Zelensky and EU leaders but he’s no hero to Britons, The Exposé, 5 March 2025]
About the Author
Matthew Goodwin is a British political scientist and commentator known for his research on populism and right-wing movements. He was a professor of politics at the University of Kent until July 2024.
Goodwin has authored several books, including ‘Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics’ and ‘National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy’ (co-authored with Roger Eatwell), and ‘Revolt on the Right: Explaining Support for the Radical Right in Britain’ (co-authored with Robert Ford).
You can follow him on Substack, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter/X and Facebook.
Featured image: Trump’s Chagos blast came after Sir Keir Starmer hit back over the president’s desire to have Greenland. Source: Daily Mail
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