A political row has broken out between Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage after the Reform UK leader appeared to suggest he would be willing to “trade” the Diego Garcia military base to secure Donald Trump’s silence on the Falklands, reports BritPanorama.
The dispute erupted after Mr. Farage told a US-based podcast that he would have told President Trump that the Chagos Islands could be his and asked him in return to “please stop talking about the Falkland Islands.”
The US President has declined to give full support for British sovereignty of the Falklands, which continues to face threats from Argentinian President Javier Milei.
“I’d have gone in and said, ‘Right, you know what, mate? Chagos, it’s yours. Diego Garcia, in perpetuity, the most strategic American military base in the world, which it is,” Mr. Farage told The Benny Show podcast.
“Outside mainland America, Diego is the most important thing America has for nuclear subs, for long-range bombers, for all of it.”
The Conservative Party leader accused Mr. Farage of “giving away British territory in return for someone keeping quiet” and branded his remarks “humiliating.”
“The Chagos Islands are British. And the Falklands are British, and will remain British, irrespective of what the American president says,” Mrs. Badenoch stated.
“When Donald Trump is right, we should say so. When he is wrong, we should have the confidence to tell him. Nigel Farage has made such a huge fuss about defending the Chagos Islands. He calls this making a deal. Giving away British territory in return for someone keeping quiet is not a deal. It is humiliating. There is no pride in our country in the way he talks about us.”
“This is careless, loose talk from a man who wants to be responsible for Britain’s national security.”
Last May, the UK government finalised a treaty transferring sovereignty of the territory to Mauritius. However, multimillion-pound payments to Mauritius have been paused while the UK government re-evaluates its agreement to relinquish sovereignty after President Trump branded the pact “terrible.”
The Reform UK leader has insisted that he did not mean he would give up British control of the Chagos Islands to America, but “would offer the use of Diego Garcia to the USA in perpetuity.”
US government sources told several news outlets overnight that they did not interpret Mr. Farage’s remarks as an offer to give up sovereignty of Chagos to America, as Mrs. Badenoch had. “He was obviously referring to the use of the Diego Garcia military base, which is critical to countering threats from China and Iran,” a White House official told The Times.
“Anyone claiming otherwise is peddling fake news and undermining the Anglo-American relationship, including, apparently, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch.”
A Reform UK spokesman accused Mrs. Badenoch of risking a “diplomatic row with Britain’s allies” over the comments. “The latest Tory lie about Nigel Farage’s Chagos island commitment just shows that absolutely nothing has changed inside the Nasty Party, and it never will,” they stated.
Meanwhile, the self-declared first minister of the Chagossian government in exile Misley Mandarin said Mrs. Badenoch “cannot be trusted by the Chagos people.”
“If they really have interest in the Chagos, why would you have started negotiating about things you already own?” he said. “We know Nigel has the Chagossians at heart. He never boasts about all his help to us. We agree with him: we would be happy for the US to keep using Diego Garcia with a British Chagossian population in perpetuity, with the rest of the Chagos being under the Crown and we the indigenous people at last having our rights respected forever.”
Argentina has in recent months stepped up its rhetoric on the Falklands, and its President Mr. Milei has launched a legal challenge which seeks to halt British-led exploration work at the Sea Lion oilfield off the islands’ waters.
Foreign Office minister Uma Kumaran told the Commons on Tuesday that the government would engage with the challenge and insisted she will do “whatever it takes” to support islanders. Ms. Kumaran also attacked Mr. Milei’s “inflammatory remarks” and the “increasingly aggressive public statements” of his ministers.
