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Labour MP accuses David Lammy of misleading parliament over Chagos deal
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David Lammy has been accused of misleading the House of Commons over the crumbling Chagos deal by a member of his own party.
The government’s agreement to hand over the Chagos Islands – including the joint UK-US airbase on Diego Garcia – to Mauritius has been plagued by issues since it was announced in October, with concerns Donald Trump could veto the deal and the new Mauritian government demanding further concessions from Britain.
But now there also appears to be growing discontent from within Labour itself.
Speaking at a meeting at Portcullis House for MPs to engage with indigenous Chagossian people, Peter Lamb, Labour MP for Crawley, claimed there is “certainly evidence” that statements made in the Commons by the foreign secretary “do not appear to be true”, referencing claims that the government has engaged with the Chagossians throughout the process of striking a deal.
The comments made by Mr Lamb – whose constituency is home to the largest community of Chagossians in the UK – highlight the fractious state of relations over the deal, the future of which is becoming increasingly uncertain.
On October 7 2024, the foreign secretary told the House of Commons: “Of course we kept the Chagossians informed all along the way.”
Chagossian Voices – a campaign group representing indigenous people originating from the islands – said they have not met with Mr Lammy, and that Stephen Doughty, who has met with the group twice since the deal was agreed, refused to discuss the negotiations.
Mr Doughty met members of the Chagossian community on 30 September and 3 October and FCDO sources have insisted officials have been in regular contact with Chagossians on a range of issues. But it is understood that Mr Doughty told those present at the meetings that he could not speak about the negotiations.
Jean-Francois Nellan, who was present at both meetings, said the second was just ten minutes long, while the first, he said, lasted thirty minutes.
While the foreign secretary has claimed that Chagossian interests are “at the heart of the deal”, testimonies from more than ten indigenous campaigners in attendance at the meeting made it clear they don’t agree.
Carl Buckley, a lawyer working with Chagossian Voices, told the meeting: “We have a secretary of state who is on the record saying, all of these [people] have been consulted when they have not.
“There is a refusal to correct the record, there is a refusal to respond to correspondence that they have sent. There is an utter refusal to engage with these people. So their humanity, their individuality, is being ignored.
“They were forcibly removed from their homes, but they are again being ignored now over 50 years later when we are discussing their homeland.”
Responding, Mr Lamb said: “I’ve forwarded their [Chagossian Voices] correspondence again and asked for a response. Freedom of Information requests are going largely unanswered, the argument being national security, which I find very difficult with the questions that I was asking.”
He added: “There is certainly evidence that statements made in the house by the foreign secretary do not appear to be true.”
Asked about Mr Lamb’s remarks, a spokesperson for Chagossian Voices told The Independent: “There has been no engagement. We never met with Lammy. And we only spoke to Stephen Doughty after the negotiations were over.”
The foreign secretary has previously argued that “it is hard to get one view” from the Chagossians as there are “Chagossians in the Seychelles, in Mauritius and in the United Kingdom”, saying the government “will continue to do all we can to support them”.
Critics of the deal are concerned about the future of the joint UK-US airbase on Diego Garcia, and also the potential for China to gain access to the islands.
Mr Lammy had agreed a deal with Mauritius, but following a change of government there, the new Mauritian prime minister Navin Ramgoolam rejected it as “not good enough” and demanded more from the UK.
Shadow Armed Forces Minister, Mark Francois, said: “The foreign secretary’s benighted Chagos deal just staggers from one disaster to another. Not only are president Trump’s team clearly very unhappy with it, but now even Labour backbenchers are speaking out against it too.
“If David Lammy had any sense he would stop digging and abandon the whole bonkers plan, sooner rather than later.”
But the foreign secretary has insisted that it is “a good deal” which secures the long-term future of the airbase. He has also pointed out that the International Court of Justice ruled that the islands belong to Mauritius.
A government spokesperson said: “The negotiations were between the UK and Mauritius with our priority being to secure the full operation of the base on Diego Garcia.
“We recognise the importance of the islands to Chagossians and have worked to ensure this agreement reflects their interests. The UK government, under both the previous and current administration, has been engaged with Chagossians at both official and ministerial level during negotiations which first started in November 2022.
“As part of the agreement, we will finance a new trust fund for Mauritius to use in support of the Chagossian community. We will work with Mauritius to start a new programme of visits for Chagossians to the Chagos Archipelago, including Diego Garcia. And Mauritius will be free to develop a programme of resettlement on the islands, other than Diego Garcia.”
Former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has accused authorities of suppressing crucial information about the Southport dance class killer, claiming they presented him as “a Welsh choir boy” to the public.
Speaking on GB News, Kwarteng said officials “clearly knew things about the killer which they suppressed” in the aftermath of the attacks.
“At the time of the murder, they essentially were presenting the killer as a Welsh choir boy,” he said.
The former chancellor suggested there was a deliberate withholding of information about Axel Rudakubana’s background and potential motivations.
GB News / CPS
“Either they suppressed it for whatever reason, and we need to get to the bottom of it, or it was a cover up because they felt that in that very patronising way, they felt that people couldn’t handle that information,” Kwarteng said.
Rudakubana, 18, pleaded guilty earlier this week to murdering three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport last July.
He is due to be sentenced today at Liverpool Crown Court – while his crimes could warrant a whole life order, this cannot be applied as he was 17 at the time of the offences.
Kwarteng claimed Merseyside Police were instructed by “people on high” not to release information they had about the case.
Axel Rudakubana will be sentenced in court today for the Southport attack
CPS/PA
“What was so crazy about that was that it actually stoked the very thing that they wanted to avoid because people were kept in the dark,” he said.
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The former chancellor pointed to what he called an “obvious double standard” in how the case was handled.
“Picture a situation where the terrorist, the killer, had been a white teenager who had been found with white supremacist literature, who then went out and killed three girls of ethnic origin,” he said.
“There wouldn’t be this debate. They would have denounced it,” Kwarteng added. He also criticised how Rudakubana had “slipped through the net” despite being repeatedly referred to Prevent.
Starmer has defended his position on withholding information about the Southport killer. The Prime Minister insisted he was following “the law of the land” to prevent the case against Rudakubana from collapsing.
Kwarteng questioned how the 18-year-old ‘slipped through the net’ after being referred to Prevent three times
GB News
“You know and I know that it would not have been right to disclose those details,” Starmer told reporters. “The only losers if the details had been disclosed would be the victims and the families because it ran the risk the trial would collapse.”
Rudakubana faces a life sentence, with a minimum term to be set by the judge before he can be considered for release. Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said investigations revealed “a man with a unhealthy obsession with extreme violence” but noted that “no one ideology was uncovered.”
Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor Ursula Doyle described it as “an unspeakable attack” that turned what should have been a day of “carefree innocence” into “a scene of the darkest horror.”
“It is clear that this was a young man with a sickening and sustained interest in death and violence,” she added.
A survivor of the 7 October Hamas attack has been chosen to represent Israel at Eurovision.
Yuval Raphael was at the Nova music festival when Hamas led a cross-border attack from Gaza into southern Israel.
Hundreds were killed and many were taken hostage at the event.
The amateur singer was there with friends and later told Israel’s parliament she hid under dead bodies for eight hours.
Yuval Raphael. Pic: Eurovision/Tal Givoni
She added: “I’m going to deal with this thing for the rest of my life.”
The 24-year-old earned her place at Eurovision, taking place in Switzerland in May, after coming first in the Rising Star singing contest on Israeli TV.
She won with a performance of ABBA’s Dancing Queen which she dedicated to victims of the attack which kick-started the war between Israel and Hamas.
After winning, she said: “I can’t explain how excited and ready I am.
“Thank you for giving me this huge honour and trusting me to represent my country on the grand Eurovision stage in Switzerland.”
In the months since the 2023 attack, which killed over 1,200 people, Israel has killed over 45,000 people in Gaza, according to the health ministry which doesn’t distinguish between fighters and civilians.
Around 90% of the enclave’s population of 2.3 million people are said to have been displaced.
A ceasefire was recently agreed for the conflict in Gaza, and will see the return of hostages and prisoners.
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Last year’s Eurovision was overshadowed by the war in Gaza, with large demonstrations protesting against Israel’s participation, and the country’s representative was kept under tight security throughout.
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Southport killer Axel Rudakubana been jailed for a minimum of 52 years after pleading guilty to murdering three young girls in a frenzied knife attack last year.
Rudakubana, 18, stabbed and killed the girls aged between six and nine with a 20cm-long kitchen knife as he ambushed a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, Merseyside.
Wearing a green hoodie, a surgical face mask and armed with the blade, the then 17-year-old travelled five miles from his family home to the studio where he unleashed his murderous rampage.
Sir Keir Starmer vowed the attack would be a “line in the sand” for Britain while announcing a public inquiry into the atrocity after the killer admitted to 16 offences.
However, despite the lengthy sentence Rudakubana was not given a whole life order. The Independent takes a look at what one is below, and why the killer has avoided one.
What is a whole life order?
An offender can be sentenced to a whole life order – or “whole life tariff” – for the most serious cases of murder, meaning their crime was so serious they will never be released from prison.
There were 65 prisoners serving whole life orders in the UK as of 30 June 2023, according to the Ministry of Justice.
Killers Rosemary West, Levi Bellfield, Michael Adebolajo, Wayne Couzens and Lucy Letby were among those serving this type of sentence.
How is it different to a life sentence?
Any offender found guilty of murder must be given a life sentence. However, a judge must decide whether to set a minimum term which must be served in full before release on licence, or impose a whole life order.
A murderer will serve a life sentence with a minimum term for the rest of their life, but does not necessarily spend this entire time in prison.
They would usually serve a term in prison, and then be released on licence subject to certain conditions. For example, the minimum term for murder with a knife is 25 years, then the offender would be released on licence. If they broke the conditions of this licence at any point, they could be sent back to prison.
Why has Rudakubana avoided a whole life order?
A judge cannot impose a whole life order on anyone who was under the age of 18 at the time of the offence, irrespective of the seriousness of that offence.
Despite being aged 18 at the time of his conviction, Rudakubana was 17 when he murdered Bebe King, six, Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine.
The Trump administration emailed thousands of federal employees on Wednesday, ordering them to report any efforts to “disguise” diversity initiatives in their agencies or face “adverse consequences”.
The request came after President Donald Trump banned diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) offices and programmes throughout the government.
Emails seen by the BBC directed workers to “report all facts and circumstances” to a new government email address within 10 days.
Some employees interpreted it as a demand to sell out their colleagues to the White House.
“We’re really freaked out and overwhelmed,” said one employee at the Department Health and Human Services (HHS).
The Office of Personnel Management, which manages the federal workforce, issued guidance requiring agency heads to send a notice to their staff by 17:00 eastern time on Wednesday. It included an email template that many federal staffers ultimately received that night.
Some employees, like those at the Treasury Department, got slightly different versions of the email.
The Treasury Department email excluded the warning about “adverse consequences” for not reporting DEI initiatives, according to a copy shared with the BBC.
In one of his first actions as president, Trump signed two executive orders ending “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or “DEI” programmes within the federal government and announced any employees working in those roles would immediately be placed on paid administrative leave.
Such programmes are designed to increase minority participation in the workforce and educate employees about discrimination.
But critics of DEI, like Trump, argue that the practice itself is discriminatory because it takes race, gender, sexual identity or other characteristics into consideration.
Trump and his allies attacked the practice frequently during the campaign.
In a speech Thursday at the World Economic Conference in Davos, Switzerland, Trump declared he was making America a “merit-based country”.
Critics of DEI have praised Trump’s decision.
“President Trump’s executive orders rescinding affirmative action and banning DEI programs are a major milestone in American civil rights progress and a critical step towards building a colour-blind society,” Yukong Mike Zhao, president of the Asian American Coalition for Education, said in a statement.
The group had supported a successful effort at the US Supreme Court to overturn affirmative action programmes at US universities.
But current federal employees, who spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation, said that the email they received felt more like an attempt to intimidate staff than to make the government more fair.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
President Trump has signed a torrent of executive orders since he took office, including a hiring freeze in the federal government, an order for workers to return to the office and an attempt to reclassify thousands of government employees in order to make them easier to fire.
The HHS employee who spoke to the BBC criticised the government’s DEI practices, believing that while it was important to build a diverse staff and create opportunities in health and medical fields, “identity politics have played into how we function normally and that’s not beneficial to the workforce”.
“But that doesn’t mean I want my colleagues to get fired,” the employee added.
He described the the impact the email and the DEI orders had on his agency as “very calculated chaos”.
The employee’s division had been thrown into confusion, he said, with questions about hiring practices going forward, as well as what programmes and directives were allowed to continue, given Trump’s broad definition of DEI.
A second HHS employee said that hiring and research grants had been frozen and the entire department staff was waiting to see what they could do next.
The HHS, and one of its subsidiary agencies, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), issue millions of dollars in federal grants to universities and researchers across the globe to advance scientific research.
Agency employees feared that the DEI order could have an impact outside the government as well. One questioned if grants that allowed laboratories to create more opportunities for hiring minority scientists and medical professionals would now get the axe.
An employee who worked at the Food and Drug Administration told the BBC that she had not received the email, but all DEI-related activities had been paused.
“We have been told by seniors to keep doing our jobs,” she said. “But there is a sense of fear about how it’s going to have an impact on our work in general.”
Keir Starmer has been accused of “pathetic bullying” by a Norfolk environmental campaigner who was singled out and ridiculed by the prime minister in an article in the Daily Mail.
Politics
‘We have to kick start the economy!’ MP defends building plans as Labour accused of ‘ignoring will of the people’
Labour MP Matthew Pennycook has defended the Government’s new planning reforms, insisting that local communities will retain their right to object to developments.
Speaking to GB News, Pennycook emphasised that “no one is saying that the views of local communities should be ignored”.
The defence comes as part of Labour’s broader initiative to streamline planning processes for major infrastructure projects across the UK.
The Government plans to reduce the number of legal challenges allowed against major infrastructure projects from three to one for “cynical cases lodged purely to cause delay.”
Matthew Pennycook said that they are not ignoring local communities
GB News
Speaking to GB News, Pennycook said: “No one is saying that the views of local communities, local people up and down the country, should be ignored under any of the changes we’re making. People will still have a right to object to planning applications.
“They will keep the right to challenge the lawfulness of government decisions. What we’re saying today is that as part of our plan for change, we’ve got to kick start economic growth.
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“We’ve got to streamline the delivery of the critical national infrastructure that our country needs, whether that’s energy, transport or aviation projects.
“We already made a number of changes to national planning policy last year to aid with that objective. We’re making further changes to the planning and infrastructure bill we’re bringing forward in the coming months.
“As part of that package, what we’re saying today is that your ability to bring forward repeated judicial review permission requests shouldn’t be allowed.
“We’re going to reduce the number of those permission requests from three to two in most cases. And in cases where a judge says that this challenge has no merit whatsoever from three to one, that will get the delivery of critical national infrastructure speeded up.
Keir Starmer has vowed to defeat what he calls “blockers”
PA
“That will have a real world impact. Because, I’m sure your viewers put it to you repeatedly, it is just too difficult to get anything built in this country.”
The changes follow recommendations from Lord Banner KC’s review of legal challenges against major building projects.
Lord Banner said: “I saw broad consensus from claimants to scheme promoters that a quicker system of justice would be in their interests, provided that cases can still be tried fairly.”
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has vowed to defeat what he calls “blockers” who are preventing the UK from completing vital infrastructure projects.
The government plans to reduce the number of legal challenges allowed against major infrastructure project
GB News
“For too long, blockers have had the upper hand in legal challenges – using our court processes to frustrate growth,” Starmer said.
He added: “We’re putting an end to this challenge culture by taking on the NIMBYs and a broken system that has slowed down our progress as a nation.”
The Prime Minister described the reforms as “taking the brakes off Britain by reforming the planning system so it is pro-growth and pro-infrastructure.”
According to the government, projects that have faced significant delays include the Sizewell C nuclear plant, the A47 national highway project and new windfarms in East Anglia.
Southport killer Axel Rudakubana was caught on CCTV footage travelling to the Taylor Swift dance class where he murdered three girls.
Wearing a surgical face mask while armed with the blade, the then 17-year-old travelled five miles from his family home to the studio where he killed Alice da Silva Aguiar, Bebe King and Elsie Dot Stancombe on 29 July, last year.
CCTV footage shows the killer in the taxi and also getting out of the vehicle at The Hart Space.
Rudakubana was today (23 January) jailed for life with a minimum term of 52 years.
President Donald Trump has said the US does not need Canadian energy, vehicles or lumber as he spoke to global business leaders at the World Economic Forum.
Trump also reiterated his threat to impose tariffs on the country, saying it can be avoided if the neighbouring nation chose to “become a state” of the US.
“You can always become a state, and if you’re a state, we won’t have a deficit. We won’t have to tariff you,” he said to gasps in the hall in Davos.
Trump has threatened to impose up to 25% tariffs on Canadian imports, possibly by 1 February.
The renewed threat of tariffs has been met with deep unease by the trade-dependent Canada.
But it has also said it will consider significant countermeasures, including a “dollar-for-dollar” response if the Trump administration follows through.
Roughly 75% of Canada’s exports head south. In contrast, Canada accounts for a much smaller 17% of US exports, though it is the second largest US trading partner, behind Mexico.
Trump in his remarks on Thursday said Canada had been “very tough to deal with over the years”.
“We don’t need them to make our cars, we make a lot of them, we don’t need their lumber because we have our own forests… we don’t need their oil and gas, we have more than anybody,” he told forum attendees via video link from Washington DC.
Trump reiterated the assertion that the US has a trade deficit with Canada of between $200bn and $250bn. It’s not clear where he got that figure.
The trade deficit with Canada – expected to be $45bn in 2024 – is mostly driven by US energy demands.
The North American auto industry also has highly integrated supply chains.
Auto parts can cross the borders between the US and Mexico and Canada multiple time before a vehicle is finally assembled.
Trump has also tied the tariffs to border security, saying it will be imposed unless Canada increases security at the shared border.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has repeatedly said that everything is on the table in response if the tariffs are imposed.
That includes a tax or embargo on energy exports to the US, though some of Canada’s provincial leaders disagree with that response.
On Thursday, Trudeau told reporters that Canada’s goal is to avoid US tariffs altogether but it will step up its response “gradually” to seek the quick removal of levies if they are imposed.
Canada is also pitching itself as a reliable trading partner and a secure source to the US for energy and critical minerals as it lobbies American lawmakers in a bid to avoid the tariffs.
Economists suggest the US depends on Canadian products for energy security.
In 2024, Canadian energy exports came to almost $170bn (C$244bn), according to a recent analysis by TD Bank economists.
Trump also said on Thursday that businesses should make their products in the US if they want to avoid tariffs.
Tariffs are a central part of Trump’s economic vision – he sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue.
The new president has ordered federal officials to review US trade relationships for any unfair practices by 1 April.
With reporting from Faisal Islam, economics editor, in Davos.
Politics
Inheritance tax raid on military families will raise ‘nothing’ for Treasury, ex-Chancellor claims
Former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has branded Labour’s plans to impose inheritance tax on military families as “total insanity”, warning the measure would raise “nothing” for the Treasury.
Speaking to GB News, Kwarteng criticised the policy that will affect death-in-service payments for Armed Forces personnel from April 2027.
Southport killer Axel Rudakubana ordered a taxi to return to his former school just a week before he stabbed three young girls to death.
Footage shows Rudakubana’s father pleading with a taxi driver not to take him to Range High School, which he was expelled from five years earlier, on 22 July, last year.
He was wearing the same hooded sweatshirt and surgical mask he wore during the attack one week later.
The 18-year-old admitted stabbing Alice da Silva Aguiar, Bebe King and Elsie Dot Stancombe to death at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class.
Rudakubana was today (23 January) jailed for life with a minimum term of 52 years.
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