'He is spot on': Unionists echo Trump's condemnation of Starmer over Chagos Islands giveaway whilst emphasising opposition to US Greenland grab
Donald Trump is “spot on” in his attack on Keir Starmer for abandoning the UK’s sovereign claim to the Chagos Islands.
That is the view of UUP MLA Steve Aiken, after Mr Trump publicly lambasted Mr Starmer’s handover deal as “an act of great stupidity”.
DUP MLA Jonathan Buckley also echoed Mr Trump’s description of the planned transfer of the islands to Mauritius, adding that the scheme is “madness” and “folly”.
A day earlier, both men had criticised Mr Trump in the Stormont Assembly for his planned annexation of Greenland.
The Chagos Islands, also known as the British Indian Ocean Territory, are about 300 miles from the nearest land (namely, the island nation of The Maldives) and over 1,000 miles from Mauritius.
They are uninhabited except for US and UK military personnel who reside on a base on one island, Diego Garcia (with the roughly 2,000 inhabitants having been forcibly removed in the 1970s).
The Labour government says that the UK’s claim to the island chain is shaky under international law, so it now aims to gift it to Mauritius – except for Diego Garcia, which the UK will lease back at a cost of around £100m per year.
The handover deal has yet to be finalised, but had been endorsed by Mr Trump last year.
Now, writing on social media on Monday, the US president has done a sharp u-turn and attacked the deal, saying that the handover of the islands adds weight to his demands for US sovereignty over Greenland.
Dr Aiken said: “On the Chagos Islands [Trump] is spot on. It’s a a bizarre and stupid decision by the Starmer government.
"To do it on the excuse of a legal opinion says more about the barrister mindset of the PM and his legal cronies… another u-turn amongst many is required.”
On the subject of Greenland, Dr Aiken said: “The President of the US’ arguments on Greenland have little to do with security.
"The US has, since 1941, had free access to build and operate bases there; at its height, the US had well over 15,000 military personnel on the island - today it has a mere 200, supporting early-warning radar.
"The US does not have to annex Greenland to achieve security, all it has to do is restore its previous bases and to encourage NATO to keep doing more.”
Mr Buckley told the News Letter: “My position on Greenland is clear. It is the sovereign right of the Greenlanders and the people of the Kingdom of Denmark to decide their constitutional future.
"But in relation to the Chagos Islands and Keir Starmer’s stupidity: to give away the Chagos Islands on the basis of a non-binding finding by the International Court is utter madness.
"To then rent them back for a further £100m per year is gross stupidity.
"Combined with granting permission to build a Chinese mega embassy right beside key infrastructure for the City of London, which generates around 12.5% of Britain’s GDP, this is folly upon folly.
"It creates the potential for Chinese espionage from the embassy, while also handing the Chagos Islands to Chinese-friendly Mauritius.
"These actions do not reflect a Prime Minister who is serious about international security in a volatile world.”
Meanwhile TUV leader Jim Allister said: “The government claims that handing the Chagos Islands to Mauritius is merely a technical act of ‘decolonisation’ based on territorial integrity.
"That is a gross misrepresentation of international law and moral reality...
"The Chagossians were never consulted, never given a vote and never permitted to express their will about their own future.
“The shameful truth is that this treaty compounds, rather than corrects, the original injustice of their forced removal in the 1960s.”
He concluded: “Against that background, President Trump’s remarks about Greenland are a warning, not a justification.
"When major powers start treating territory and peoples as bargaining chips rather than communities with rights, they normalise the very abuses of sovereignty and human dignity that international law was meant to prevent.
“The lesson of Chagos is not that stronger states should carve up the world more aggressively.
“It is that ignoring self-determination in the name of strategic convenience stores up injustice, instability and hypocrisy – and invites exactly the kind of geopolitical cynicism now being played out over Greenland.”
At the weekend, it had emerged that Donald Trump had written to the leader of Norway, saying: “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America…
"The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.”
UUP peer Lord Empey said Mr Trump has “legitimate concerns” about Greenland, but that “the issue should have been negotiated behind closed doors and not on social media”, and “to link Greenland to the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize is demeaning of his office”.