Chagone
A serious party of the Right would promise to reverse the Chagos deal and jail those involved
There’s no point any more in saying, “if the Tories were serious, they would … ” because they’re not. They’re not a serious party because they haven’t blamed Rishi Sunak for ragequitting a year ago yesterday. When he selfishly called, and still more incompetently fought, last year’s disastrous general election campaign.
The party without blame is a party without a future. Pretending the worst result in your history didn’t happen isn’t going to work. Not when there’s now another right-wing party, which didn’t make your mistakes, and is outpolling you 2:1. As no matter how much you despise your former voters, the fact that they despise you more is what’s important.
However, if the Right in this country is serious about the crap it vibes, it should do something about the Chagos Islands, which Keir Starmer’s Labour government has preposterously given away because of “decolonisation”.
Join Britain’s most civilised publication.
Challenge the consensus. Access rigorous analysis.
This is the example from merely yesterday, but it’s emblematic of conservative Britain’s mismatch between apocalyptic diagnoses and pathetically limp responses. Or, as in this case, a willingness to take being beaten, then tamely move on. As either the Right means its rhetoric or it does not.
Pass an act of parliament against named individuals and imprison them
The Conservative Party is in the state it is — fourth place in the polls, producing a few dozen MPs for fifth place in parliament, come any election — because it kept using words to hide the truth that it wouldn’t do anything. Reform have that choice in front of them too; Badenoch and Priti Patel’s press releases on Chagos promise nothing. I don’t know what Farage has said. Though obviously for him to say anything too vigorously would mean him contradicting Donald Trump, who has signed off on this deal. To be fair, Richard Tice has claimed Reform will renege on the deal in office.
By far the best thing we could do over our needless, treacherous surrender of the Chagos Islands is to threaten the people responsible for this wretched deal. Reform and, for whatever it sentimentally matters, the Tories should threaten to lock up Keir Starmer, David Lammy, Jonathan “let’s invite psychotic mass murderer Martin McGuinness to my wedding!” Powell and Philippe Sands. Pass an act of parliament against named individuals and imprison them (for surely we’ll have left the ECHR too by the happy time there’s a non-Labour government again).
“That’s ridiculous! Serious people don’t threaten to lock up their political opponents, and certainly not for legitimate, constitutionally permissible, political choices. And if they do threaten it, they certainly don’t actually follow through on that”. There, I think those are the objections pretty much in full.
We’d look like fools if we threatened to bang up Starmer, Lammy and Powell. Presumably more so than they do for giving away something we don’t need to (a whole island chain, indeed). For reasons which aren’t real (non-existent international law). Because of fears which are simply absurd (that the Chinese might accept a phantom Mauritian invitation to build infrastructure within shooting distance of the Americans). Due to factors which are risible (private contactors likewise sharing Keef’s superstitious dread of international pretend law would stop making deliveries). And because of the lies Starmer is happy to say straight-faced (such as the Russians and Chinese wanting us to hold on to the islands, unchallenged by the muppets who thought his deal might not happen).
So why isn’t there a serious, we’re-going-to-govern-the-country-after-Labour voice saying, “we’re going to reverse this and hit the people responsible”? That we’ll just, as in so many other circumstances worldwide, rip up this deal. As we’ll have possession of the base after all, which is very much nine and some tenths of the law. Thus we could so easily tell Mauritius, “deal’s off: you’re not dealing with suckers now”. How come the zesty British Right isn’t promising that?
Well one reason there isn’t this spirit of revanche is because the Americans, who actually own the islands, wouldn’t massively care for it. The pretence of claiming that this territory is, or rather, was British is exploded by any delusion that we could ever have asked the Americans to leave. But we shall no more think about that than the remaining crowd of British Trumpers will reflect on why their efforts to influence the White House on this were so entirely ignored.
There’s a world where Boris, an infinitely more able bullshitter than Badenoch, might once have promised he’d act, but he became PM, and the fruit of this is that having seen him govern, no one is going to believe a word he says ever again.
What has happened yesterday is unacceptable for a country undefeated in war. No credible faction on the British Right is promising to undo it and get the men who did this abominable thing. That’s where we’re at, that’s who we are. It’s very little wonder Starmer and his foreign friends are walking all over us.
