Kemi Badenoch Slammed By White House Amid Farage Chagos Islands Row

Kemi Badenoch has been condemned by the White House after she hit out at Nigel Farage over comments he made about the Chagos Islands on a US podcast.

The Reform UK leader appeared to suggest he would hand the British overseas territory to America in return for Donald Trump remaining silent about the future of the Falkland Islands.

Badenoch said that was “loose talk from a man who wants to be responsible for Britain’s national security”.

But in an extraordinary intervention, a White House official accused the Tory leader of “peddling fake news and undermining the Anglo-American relationship”.

Labour wants to hand over sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, while paying for a 99-year lease to retain the US-UK military base at Diego Garcia.

However, the deal is currently on ice after it was condemned by Donald Trump.

Speaking to the Benny Show podcast, Farage said if he was PM, he would do a deal with Trump over both Chagos and the Falkland Islands.

He said: “I’d have gone in and said, ‘Right, you know what mate? Chagos, it’s yours. Diego Garcia, in perpetuity, the most strategic American military base in the world... In return, just please stop talking about the Falkland Islands’.”

Responding to his comments, Badenoch said: “It is mad for someone who wants to be prime minister to say we should give away one piece of British territory just to stop an American president talking about another.

“The Chagos Islands are British. And the Falklands are British, and will remain British, irrespective of what the American president says. 

“When Donald Trump is right, we should say so. When he is wrong, we should have the confidence to tell him.

“Nigel Farage has made such a huge fuss about defending the Chagos Islands. He calls this making a deal. Giving away British territory in return for someone keeping quiet is not a deal. It is humiliating. There is no pride in our country in the way he talks about us.

“This is careless, loose talk from a man who wants to be responsible for Britain’s national security.”

But a White Official told The Times: “At no point did anyone in the administration construe Nigel’s comments as suggesting that he was giving away the Chagos Islands.

“He was obviously referring to the use of the Diego Garcia military base, which is critical to countering threats from China and Iran.

“Anyone claiming otherwise is peddling fake news and undermining the Anglo-American relationship, including, apparently, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch.”

A spokesman for Nigel Farage said: “It’s quite clear Nigel was talking about the Americans using Diego Garcia in perpetuity and not the Chagos Islands as a whole. 

“No one has fought harder to save the Chagos Islands from being given away than Nigel. He has even helped repopulate the islands with Chagossians.”

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