Keir Starmer thinks international court trumps UK national interest, says former Chancellor
FORMER Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has said he thinks Sir Keir Starmer and some diplomats put international law over the UK national interest.
Speaking on GB News, he said: “But I don’t think the government will care at this point. They’re obsessed with international law. This was clearly a terrible deal [Chagos]. They’re flip-flopping all over the place and Donald Trump, essentially, is calling the tune.
“And I think at this point they don’t care. They probably want to get the deal over the line. But now Trump has intervened, it’s very hard for them to do that. And they also said last year that they can’t do the deal without American support.
“Now, where Trump was unreliable was that he started off being against the deal, then he seemed to agree to the deal, and now he’s against the deal. So the government has essentially just mirrored what they’re hearing from him.
“But I don’t think they care now really about the optics. I think they feel they want to get the deal over the line. They’re probably putting a lot of pressure on Donald Trump to agree to it, and they just want to, they just want to get the deal done.
“It was obvious what happened and we all know that as far as Keir Starmer is concerned, the International Court of Justice is absolutely paramount, and there are elements of the Foreign Office who think the same.
“So if there’s a British government that says, actually, this isn’t in the British interests, the international court, it was advisory guidance. It’s not a binding thing.
“But there is a section of diplomats and the left, Labour, who say, well, the International Court trumps everything, even if it’s against our national interests. And that’s clearly what happened.
“We didn’t capitulate. The International Court of Justice was in 2019. There were five years of Conservative government, and we didn’t, at any point in those five years, surrender the islands.
“As soon as Labour came in, the officials presented them, I’m sure, with the usual guidance, and they immediately caved.
“I agree we should have been more definitive, perhaps. But when they came in immediately, and then what would have happened, the officials would have presented exactly the same advice that they presented to Conservative ministers. The only difference is the Conservative minister said, ‘Well, hang on, let’s keep this show on the road’.
“And the Labour ministers came in and said, ‘Yep, that’s right. We’ll do what the International Court said’.
“So what happens, the International Court opined or gave the advisory guidance in 2019 and when that happens, our Civil Service, government, engaged with the Mauritians. Now you could say, with hindsight, that that was the wrong we should have just said no. We should have just simply said no.
“But we what we didn’t do was simply say, ‘Yeah, okay, International Court of Justice’, which has a Russian judge, a Chinese judge; these are not people who hold us in any regard or esteem, and they’re not looking after our interests.
“And they basically said it was advisory, so there was nothing binding in it. They said you should give it back to Mauritius and the Labour government immediately they came in, essentially just caved on that.”
