Uh oh. There’s trouble in paradise as it appears the relationship between Sir Keir Starmer and Navin Ramgoolam is becoming a little strained. After the Mauritian PM told his MPs yesterday that Starmer had offered up a new and improved deal on the Chagos archipelago, the Labour leader was forced to fend off questions about the soaring cost of the proposal in today’s PMQs. Now Downing Street has hit out at Ramgoolam over the issue – and even blasted his comments as ‘factually inaccurate’. Shots fired…
Speaking to parliamentarians on Tuesday, Ramgoolam claimed the updated offer would effectively double the £9 billion first offered to the country to take back the Chagos Islands and hand Mauritius ‘complete sovereignty’ of Diego Garcia, home to a key US military base. Reform UK’s Nigel Farage slammed the proposal as a ‘dreadful decision’, while Tory MP Robert Jenrick dubbed the PM a ‘quisling’ over the move.
This afternoon, Sir Keir’s official spokesperson insisted:
There was some reporting on this yesterday in relation to the Mauritian prime minister. He has got those figures, or at least the way he was characterising it, wrong. His summary of the deal was clearly aimed at a domestic political audience, but it was factually inaccurate. There has been no change to the cost of the deal or the terms of the lease.
How curious. And now the Mauritian government has released a statement clarifying Ramgoolam’s remarks. The notice is adamant that their PM did not claim the financial package offered to the nation ‘had doubled, as alleged’ and restated its commitment to sign an agreement with Britain. Exactly what the final deal will entail, however, remains unclear…
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