Nigel Farage has said the UK should offer Donald Trump the Chagos Islands in return for him staying silent about the Falkland Islands.
The Chagos Islands have proved to be a thorny issue for Labour ever since they won the 2024 general election. Last year, the UK signed a £3.4 billion deal to cede sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, and then lease back its largest island, Diego Garcia, for 99 years to continue operating a joint US-UK military base there.
The government says the deal is essential to securing the long-term future and security of the base. The deal had initially received support from Donald Trump and the US but he has since U-turned on his support.
At home, the Tories and Reform have been highly critical of the deal and its cost, whilst Andy Burnham has said he will continue to try and get the deal over the line with the US on board.
But whatever your views on the deal, it’s certainly a hell of a lot better than what Nigel Farage would do.
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Appearing on a podcast this week, the Reform leader said he would hand over the islands to Trump, in return for silence about the Falklands.
Farage told the Benny Show with Benny Johnson he would offer the US president the archipelago as part of a “trade”, if the US president agreed to “stop talking about the Falkland Islands.”
He said: “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.
“Outside mainline America, Diego is the most important thing America has for nuclear subs, for long-range bombers, for all of it.
“I’d have said, ‘Right, I’m guaranteeing you that. I’m giving up on this surrender. In return, just please stop talking about the Falkland Islands. I know you like [Argentina’s president Javier] Milei, but this really matters to us’. And there’s a trade, you see.”
He added: “I give him something. I ask for something back. He’d get that. He’d understand that. He’s a businessman. He’s a trader.”
The comments have been slammed by Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, who labelled them “humiliating.”
Badenoch said it was “mad for someone who wants to be prime minister to say we should give away one piece of British territory just to stop an American president talking about another”.
She added: “The Chagos Islands are British. And the Falklands are British and will remain British, irrespective of what the American president says. When Donald Trump is right, we should say so. When he is wrong, we should have the confidence to tell him.”
A Reform spokesperson told the Telegraph it was “quite clear Nigel was talking about the Americans using Diego Garcia in perpetuity and not the Chagos Islands as a whole”.
They added: “No one has fought harder to save the Chagos Islands from being given away than Nigel. He has even helped repopulate the islands with Chagossians.”