Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has launched a scathing attack on the Government's Chagos Islands deal, describing it as a "horrible surrender" of British territory.Speaking to GB News, Badenoch criticised Prime Minister Starmer's decision, claiming the motivation behind the deal was "reparations" and "to apologise for decolonisation".FULL STORY HERE.
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00:00Will you take a decision on whether you want to remain in the ECHR?
00:03We are going to come out with a new policy on how we approach all of the lawfare.
00:08I thought you were going to say we are going to come out.
00:09I thought we were going to do a Robert Jenrick on us.
00:11Well, Camilla, I've said if we have to come out, we will come out.
00:15I think you're leaning towards coming out. Can I say that?
00:17From the first time I interviewed you as leader to now,
00:20am I correct in making the observation that you are heading in the direction of leaving?
00:25Every day I see a new case that looks like the ECHR is unsustainable.
00:28That's a yes then, isn't it?
00:29Every day I see a new case, but it's not just the ECHR.
00:31It's the Refugee Convention and looking at so many other things.
00:34Look at this international law madness that means that Sama has given away the Chagos Islands.
00:39It's £30 billion.
00:40You look at the memo that was sent.
00:43Why are they doing this? It's reparations.
00:45It's to apologise for decolonisation.
00:47This is British territory. We have a strategic military base there.
00:50It's going to cost us £100 million every year.
00:53That's 2,000 nurses every year that we could be having that we're giving that out.
00:58You can tear that up and you can tear up the EU deal.
01:01Can you really?
01:01EU deal, yes we can.
01:04When you give territory away, it's a lot harder to get it back.
01:06But what are Brussels going to say when you take that reset deal and tear it up?
01:10But they knew that before they set it.
01:12Can you do it legally?
01:13Of course we can change it. We left the EU, didn't we?
01:15How about the Chagos deal?
01:16We left the EU. The Chagos deal is a lot harder.
01:18When you give territory away, it's a lot harder to get it back.
01:21That is why what Keir Starmer did is so wrong and so immoral.
01:23In the spirit of you not fooling the electorate, you've got to be honest.
01:26I mean, you can't say we're going to tear up the Chagos deal if you can't.
01:28We're voting against the deal now.
01:30We're voting against the deal now.
01:32But unfortunately, there's 120 Conservative MPs.
01:35We're going to lead a lot of Labour MPs to see sense.
01:38And this is what I said.
01:39The last election, people swapped out about 250 Tory MPs for about five Reform MPs.
01:44We now don't have the numbers.
01:46And we've got 70 Lib Dems as well, who are well to the left of Labour.
01:49We don't always have the numbers to overturn things.
01:51But we're going to vote against the Chagos deal.
01:53It is a horrible surrender.
01:54It's bad for the Chagosians.
01:56The Islanders don't like it.
01:57We lose a strategic military base.
01:59And you know the worst bit?
02:00Mauritius, an ally of China, collaborating with Russia, should not do that.
02:06But if you can't do anything about it, then we're stuck with it.
02:09We can do something about it now.
02:11We are the opposition.
02:12But it's going to go through because you lost the last general election.
02:14You don't have the numbers.
02:15No, it's going through because Labour are making bad decisions.
02:18We're not the government now.
02:19I can't be held responsible for what Labour does.
02:21You laid the foundation.
02:22Like so many things.
02:23It's a nonsense argument.
02:24Hang on.
02:24There's a credible argument for saying, oh, why is the welfare bill so high?
02:28Why are taxes so high?
02:30Why is immigration so high?
02:32Why have we got Labour rocket fueling a Chagos deal?
02:35And the tentacles always lead back to the Conservatives.
02:38They lead back to 14 years of bad decision making.
02:42What were you even doing entertaining the idea of doing a deal on Chagos?
02:46David Cameron stopped those talks.
02:47There was an advisory ruling from a court that doesn't have jurisdiction.
02:50Wasn't James Cleverley up to his neck in it when he was Foreign Secretary?
02:52Who was the last Foreign Secretary?
02:54It was David Cameron.
02:55He was Foreign Secretary.
02:56And he said no to that.
02:58He stopped that deal.
02:59No Conservative minister signed any deal.
03:01James Cleverley didn't.
03:03David Cameron didn't.
03:04We stopped those talks.
03:05There are always talks that happen about these sorts of things.
03:08But the point I'm making is that we were in government for 14 years.
03:11We got some things right.
03:12But towards the end, we got a lot of things wrong.
03:14But I'm not responsible for those things.
03:16There were many things I tried to stop.
03:17I am the new leader and we are changing things.