From Chagos to The Chinese Super Embassy Treason: Is Keir Starmer Simply the Worst Negotiator in History, or an actual Chinese Asset?

The decision, twice delayed, represents the most shocking betrayal of UK National Security I can ever recall from a serving UK Prime Minister.

When Kier Starmer concluded the Chagos Deal I thought we had seen the worst agreement ever signed by a British Prime Minister. Under the terms of the Chagos deal, Britain agreed to give away a key strategic asset to a nation with no historical claim on it. The Chagos Archipelago includes the US-UK base of Diego Garcia, a vital deep water port, and two 12,000 foot runways that can support long range bombers like the B2-Spirit and B-52H. It has refuelling capability for flights across a vast range of strategically important locations, and has previously been of use in missions in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East. Centrally located in the Indian Ocean, it is equidistant between Africa and South-East Asia, meaning that it’s possession allows for the rapid deployment of air and naval forces across the Indo-Pacific, Middle East, and East Africa.

Its port allows a deep water facility for nuclear powered submarines, aircraft carriers, and maritime pre-positioning ships, which means that sustained naval operations can be supported from this location. It’s position also makes it perfect for surveillance and intelligence, which is why the US has placed key facilities like the Diego Garcia Remote Tracking Station there, which supports satellite command and control, GPS operations, and missile tracking. It’s been described as a “lynch-pin” in US and UK defence strategy and strategic deterrence because it offers the ability to respond to threats very quickly, with unimpeded access, long term survivability, and operational depth in critical and contested environments. This also makes handing control of the surrounding area to someone else a potentially significant vulnerability. Instead of you being able to spy on and monitor them, this other power can now spy on the US military base.

Along with all these military and defence implications, the UK ownership of the Chagos Islands included the territorial sea surrounding the archipelago, its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). This covers 200 nautical miles surrounding the Archipelago in all directions, a total area of 640,000 square kilometres (247,000 square miles), making it one of the largest marine protected areas in the world. Within that territory, Britain had exclusive right to all the minerals, fishing, oil or any other natural resources discovered there and had sole control of their detection, extraction and sale. All of this was handed to Mauritius by the deal Starmer signed on 22nd May 2025.

The full lunacy of the deal is understandable when we see that the Brirish government acknowledge the strategic importance of the asset they gave away. Since the US wishes to retain the Diego Garcia base, the UK then had to agree to lease back that land they were, in the SAME deal, giving away. This led to the utterly ludicrous position of the UK paying Mauritius for the return of Mauritius taking something we owned. That payment is for a 99 year lease on the land containing the military base, and is eye-wateringly disadvantageous to the UK and the UK taxpayer. The gobernmrnt claims it will be a limited payment of around £101 million per annum, but have actually agreed that these payments are linked to inflation and that they extend for an indefinite period. The total end cost could easily top £30 BILLION.

The thing is, that deal was completely unnecessary. There was no real pressure on Britain from anyone else to give all this to Mauritius. Mauritius is located some 1,300 miles away from Chagos. The only claim Mauritius has ironically refers right back to the French colonial era when the French treated both as the same territory, a position the UK clarified in 1965 three years before Mauritius gained independence. Mauritius is hardly a nation capable of posing any serious threat to ownership, and had been pursuing a case through international courts that was completely meaningless. It’s true that in 2019 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) gave an advisory ruling supporting Mauritius but that has NO legal force and no mechanism of enforcement. It was an advisory opinion of a powerless body.

The remaining Chagossians themselves prefer British authority to becoming Mauritian, and are seeking legal avenues to challenge the deal. So there was no argument to name in terms of Britain’s rule being unjust or colonialist when the Chagossians themselves preferred the existing arrangements over transfer to Mauritius. A single ruling by a toothless court prompted Starmer’s Chagos fiasco.

Partly it can be ascribed to Starmer’s own background and ideology. Starmer is a leftist lawyer who is obsessed, fanatical even, regarding the priority of international law over national law and national self-interest. He is always keen to show his fetish for internsyional law and signal that his primary loyalty is to foreign and internationalist and transnational courts. But the Chagos deal was also strongly influenced by other Labour figures of a similar background and mindset. Here is what AI summaries return on the key figures involved in reaching the agreement:

“The key legal figures behind the UK-Mauritius Chagos Islands deal include Lord Hermer, the UK’s Attorney General, and Philippe Sands, a prominent international lawyer who led the Mauritian negotiating team. Both are close associates of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, having worked together as barristers and shared a long-standing professional relationship. Lord Hermer has been a central figure in shaping the UK’s legal strategy, advocating for the deal based on the interpretation that failing to comply with international law—particularly the non-binding opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ)—would risk the legal status of the Diego Garcia military base.

Philippe Sands, a renowned human rights lawyer and professor, has been instrumental in advancing Mauritius’s claim, leveraging legal arguments rooted in decolonisation and international law. His involvement, along with Starmer’s and Hermer’s, has drawn criticism from political opponents who argue the deal reflects an extreme legal interpretation that undermines national sovereignty. Despite this, the government maintains the agreement is essential to secure the future of the UK-US military base and uphold international legal obligations.”

In other words, the UK’s clear strategic, financial, defence and military interests were set aside in the decision of three very left wing lawyers who had worked together for years, with the UK Prime Minister and UK Attorney General both agreeing the deal being very close personal friends and former professional colleagues of the lawyer representing the Mauritian claim and financially profiting from the Mauritian claim. This gross conflict of interest genuinely seems to have placed an ideological colonial guilt complex above pragmatic national interest, and likewise allowed the UK negotiation to be extraordinarily distorted by personal friendship in a cabal of lawyers working for both sides of that negotiation. The people supposedly protecting British interests were friends of the man challenging British interests and demanding, on behalf of his client, huge payments from Britain.

All this would qualify as one of the greatest scandals in UK history if the British press and media cared any more about UK interests than the Labour government does. But it’s not even the full extent of the folly and corruption involved regarding Chagos. That only comes if you address the geopolitical situation as well. When you look at that, the wider context of the deal, it moves from the territory of folly to the territory of treason.

I do not say that lightly or for hyperbole. I believe the Chagos Deal is so damaging to UK interests, so unnecessary in its agreement, and so shamelessly contrary to the defence, security, power, prestige and finances of the UK, that its conclusion represents an act of treason, particularly given the personal friendships and compromised positions of the links between the Prime Minister, the Attorney General, and Phillipe Sands. To enter a negotiation and make a decision deeply harmful to your own nation, which profits and rewards your personal friend, is surely an act which would have been avoided by any honest man, and equally one only attractive to a person devoid of national loyalty.

And the part that confirms the treason, even more than Phillipe Sands getting paid for all this, is found in the geopolitical context.

Which is that this desk was concluded at a time when China is advancing its interests globally and in the Indian Ocean, and when maritime links through the Chagos region are as important to China as they are to us or the US. Because Mauritius, while this negotiation went on, is also a nation Chinese influence has extended to:

“China–Mauritius relations have deep historical, economic, and strategic roots, marked by strong diplomatic ties since the establishment of formal relations on April 15, 1972. Mauritius is the first African country to sign and ratify a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China, which came into force on January 1, 2021, making it a key gateway for Chinese investment and trade into Africa.

• Economic Ties: China is Mauritius’ largest trading partner, accounting for 18% of imports (ahead of India and South Africa). In 2024, bilateral trade reached $1.102 billion, with China exporting $1.083 billion and importing $19 million from Mauritius. The FTA eliminates tariffs on 96.3% of Mauritian exports to China and 94.2% of Chinese exports to Mauritius.

• Strategic Infrastructure: China has funded major projects in Mauritius, including the Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport, the Bagatelle Dam, the Cote d’Or National Sports Complex, and the Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation Building, often through concessional loans.

• Financial and Digital Hub: The FTA promotes the development of a Renminbi clearing and settlement facility in Mauritius, positioning it as a potential African hub for China’s digital yuan and fintech innovation.

• Cultural and Educational Exchange: Mauritius hosts the first overseas Chinese cultural center outside China (established in 1988), a Confucius Institute at the University of Mauritius, and celebrates Chinese New Year as a public holiday. Over 200 Mauritian students study in China annually.

• Geopolitical Significance: Despite its small size, Mauritius is strategically positioned in the Indian Ocean and is seen as a critical bridge between Asia and Africa. China views the island as a platform for expanding influence across the continent, though Mauritius maintains a balanced foreign policy, also strengthening ties with India and the West.”

Let us be very clear on this.

Mauririus is the hub of China’s extension of influence and power in Africa. It is a Chinese ally and, given its own relative weakness, practically a Chinese asset. It might even be fair to say, now, that it is controlled by China, just as Venezuela under Maduro was in many ways controlled by China in South America and the South American hub for the extension of Chinese influence in South America.

Those who concluded this deal would have had security briefs and intelligence reports telling them far more regarding the links between China and Mauritius than I have access to. They would have known BOTH what a bad deal this is for the UK, AND what a good deal it is for China and China’s other allies who are antagonistic towards the UK.

The day after Britain signed the Chagos deal, Mauritius signed a deal on ‘marine development and research’ with Russia, potentially opening all the maritime resources we gave away to Russian and Chinese development, or equally facilitating Russian and Chinese spying on Diego-Garcia. Not only have we sacrificed potentially significant profits, but also the 99 year lease we are paying for becomes useless if the area is clogged with Russian and Chinese shipping and Russian and Chinese spying facilities ‘conducting maritime research’.

Finally we come to the second great betrayal of the UK to Chinese interests. That is the announcement that the UK government has agreed to a Chinese super embassy in London. Again, this comes against both security advice and local disagreement. The super embassy is to be based in the heart of London, which of course is usual for all embassies. But its exact location is adjacent to cables supplying City of London financial instititions and key UK government buildings. It’s perfectly positioned to allow the Chinese to hack into critical UK infrastructure. The Express reported:

“The site would be in close proximity to data cables, said to be crucial for financial sector communications between the City of London and Canary Wharf.”

So the Chinese are being offered the chance to disrupt our financial communications if they choose to do so, London’s most important and profitable industry, on top of the close proximity they would have to other data stores, communications networks and the infrastructure underpinning those (which is even worse a scenario than simply remote hacking into computers systems).

We know that the intelligence services advised against agreeing to the super embassy. China has applied pressure, and the government have responded by doing what China wants. First the government barred the intelligence services from offering further active on the issue, and then they ignored the advice they had already received.

At the same time the local council involved and local residents are against the super embassy. They too have been completely ignored. China has not even attempted to disguise the malign nature of their plans. The building plans they will be working from include 208 secret rooms, and an additional hidden chamber. It seems that the Chinese have made it clear they are including secret facilities in the building, but of course not supplied full plans and explanations for this (after all, if you can get away with just telling people ‘there are secret chambers, we won’t tell you where’ and they accept that, why bother? It is literally the case that the Chinese have indicated that they want facilities where they could hold people, perhaps torture them, perhaps murder, perhaps store weapons, drugs, bombs….but don’t worry, we won’t do that. And Keir Starmer has said ‘208 secret rooms? Sounds legitimate to me’.

It’s worth quoting Priti Patel on this, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, because I think she has actually expressed it well:

““Keir Starmer has sold off our national security to the Chinese Communist Party with his shameful Super Embassy Surrender. Throughout his dismal premiership to date, the PM has kowtowed to Beijing at every opportunity, including over Chagos.

“And now, once again, he is giving Xi Jinping what he wants – a colossal spy hub in the heart of our capital.”

The old adage that one instance may be an accident, two suggest deliberate intent, and three examples confirm it, might well apply here, but I’m not sure the UK can afford a third example.

The Chinese super embassy isn’t even a disguised threat. It’s an obvious, startlingly obviois one, given the Chinese record of intellectual property theft, sabotage, surveillance, industrial espionage and espionage in general. Plans could have been submitted for a perfectly normal embassy. An existing property with none of these highly dubious features could have been purchased. A location in London but removed from key data cables could have been agreed. Instrad the Chinese submitted plans that virtually had ‘we intend to do a massive amount of spying on you’ and ‘maybe this is a torture chamber, maybe not’ written on them, the UK intelligence agencies were horrified, the local council and UK citizens were horrified….and Kier Starmer said, ‘looks all good to me’.

So perhaps in both cases we need to move from the assumption of incompetence to the assumption of intent. Is it humanly possible to be THIS stupid, and selectively so with regard to threats from China? Or is Starmer actually some kind of Chinese asset?

Even for those of us who detest the man it seems an extreme accusation. Until we ask ourselves, on Chagos and on the Super Embassy….what would a Chinese asset do? The answer to that seems, at least to me, to be exactly what Keir Starmer IS doing.