“The legal advice, security advice, is very clear that the operation of this base will be at risk if there is not a deal which would directly impact our national security, US national security, and indeed the operation of a base that is important to regional security,” the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said.
The Government has been advised that not securing a deal for the Chagos Islands would put the operation of the Diego Garcia base at risk and directly impact the UK’s national security, No 10 has said.
He told MPs during an urgent question in the Commons: “I was the deputy foreign secretary throughout much of these negotiations, and I am in a position to tell the House that neither [former foreign secretary James Cleverly] nor Lord [David] Cameron, in the other place as foreign secretary, would ever have done the deal that the Government are now intent upon.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said Mauritian prime minister Navin Ramgoolam’s comments were “factually inaccurate” and there had been “no change” to the cost of the deal as a result of renegotiations.
The Tory leader said during Prime Minister’s Questions that “when Labour negotiates, our country loses” and the deal with Mauritius would see money handed over which “belongs to our children and their children”.
