If Starmer really wants Trump’s support, offer him the Chagos Islands

Keir Starmer seemed on unusually good form as he arrived in Washington last night. He cracked quite a good joke about the United Kingdom’s new ambassador to the United States, Lord Mandelson. Maybe, just maybe, there’s a charismatic statesman lurking behind the prime minister’s dreary exterior. We shall see.

At any rate, assuming no bizarre media blow ups in the coming hours, the odds are that the Trump-Starmer meeting today will prove to be a success. Despite his reputation, President Trump tends to like people, especially British PMs (he tried and failed with Theresa May), and reports are that he responded well to his long first telephone call with Sir Keir last month. Starmer’s personality is a gray box but, with Europe, Ukraine and global politics in flux, he recognizes his clear chance today to present his government as the transatlantic bridge between the liberal international past and the more unpredictable Trumpy future. Whether he fully meets the moment is another question.

On Monday, the French president enjoyed a friendly reception from the Donald but, as Nigel Farage tells me, “Macron’s visit was all smiles and no substance. Starmer’s has to have some substance.”

Labour’s hope is that, with its plan to up defense spending by a fraction and reduce the unpopular foreign aid budget, the British government can position itself as America’s best friend not-quite-in Europe and a sort of diplomatic aspirin to Trump’s Ukraine headaches. But the Donald doesn’t do decimals or painless statesmanship. He and the US defense establishment know that Britain’s armed forces are nowhere near potent enough to police Eastern Europe and, besides, Russia will probably never accept the idea of Perfidious Albion’s troops on its western border. Still, Trump will probably politely nod along with Starmer’s proposal for the United Kingdom’s role in Ukraine’s future — with Uncle Sam’s awesome air power still serving as the ultimate “backstop” against aggression from the east — as a preamble to his big deal-signing encounter with Volodymyr Zelensky tomorrow.

But if Starmer really wants Trump’s support, he needs to offer America something more substantial and enticing. And, as Farage pointed out yesterday, over the Chagos Islands, there’s an opening for what Trump would see as a beautiful, beautiful deal. Secretary of state Marco Rubio and national security advisor Mike Waltz have both expressed their distress at Britain’s masochistic determination to hand over sovereignty of Chagos to Mauritius (read: China) and pay out billions for the dubious privilege. As Farage said in the House of Commons Wednesday: “They are clearly hellbent on giving away the Chagos Islands, whatever the risks to global security, whatever the risks to our own budgetary constraints, and having ignored completely the will of the majority of the Chagossian people. If that’s the case, I would rather see America have the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands. If we’re going give this up, let’s sell. Let’s get a few billion quid… sell it to America, don’t give it away to corrupt Mauritius.”

Farage was barracked in the chamber, of course, and Starmer would hate the public to think his foreign policy was being dictated by the leader of Reform. But Farage’s suggestion has a compelling and Trump-attuned logic. America is very interested in the future of Diego Garcia, the biggest Chaggosian island, which is home to the strategically important US-UK military base. Trump 2.0 is an acquisitional administration — it wants Greenland, Canada and Gaza. Why not put Chagos in its sights?

As he has shown over Ukraine in recent days, Trump is much preoccupied with minerals, and the vast marine-protected area around the Chagos archipelago has plenty of cobalt and other important substances. And, of course, Chagos has plenty of what Trump prizes most of all: beach-front real-estate opportunities. The riviera of the Indian Ocean? You laugh, but, as Farage puts it to Americano: “The tourist potential of that area is unbelievable… I just thought that might appeal to him [Trump].” He’s not wrong. A few billion from America would help pay for Britain’s expanding defense budget, too.

A cautious lawyer by background and instinct, Starmer tends to defer more to the International Court of Justice, and his old friends in the legal profession, than to the Art of the Deal. Moreover, any major concession to Trump would enrage Labour activists. But David Lammy, the foreign secretary, did say yesterday that the government’s current Chagos deal would not go ahead if America rejected it. Lammy seems pretty glum of late. Perhaps Starmer and Lord Mandelson have something more dramatic up their sleeve?

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