Farage flies to Trump to save British base from ‘loser’ Starmer | UK | News
Nigel Farage will head to Mar-a-Lago on Friday to amplify his anti-Chagos deal message directly with Donald Trump, as the US president’s open disdain for Sir Keir Starmer puts the controversial islands deal in serious jeopardy.
The Reform UK leader revealed plans for dinner at Guido Fawkes’ Save the Chagos Boat Party, where he painted an increasingly optimistic picture of the campaign to scrap the deal.
“President Trump has almost got the deal, but I’m going to have dinner at Mar-a-Lago tomorrow night and we’ll amplify the message,” he told the gathering.
Farage had no reaction in his assessment of the Mauritius deal, calling it the “worst deal in history” and an “absolute betrayal”. Urging his supporters to keep up the pressure, he said: “We’ve got to keep fighting, we’ve got to keep the pressure up, we’ve got to keep our foot off this pedal, but for the first time in this fight… this feels like more than winnable.”
He added: “We think this is the central plank of the Government’s foreign policy and we are pushing them back.”
Trump blames Starmer
According to GB News, Farage’s trip to Florida comes at a time of severe tension between Washington and Downing Street; Trump has publicly and repeatedly belittled the Prime Minister for the UK’s handling of the Middle East crisis and the Chagos issue.
The trigger was Starmer’s initial refusal to open RAF bases, including Diego Garcia, to American strike missions. Trump’s response was lackluster. “To that island… It took us three, four days to decide where we could land there. It would have been much more convenient to land there instead of flying extra hours, so we were very surprised,” he said.
“This is not Winston Churchill we’re dealing with,” Trump added, after separately telling reporters that the Prime Minister was “very uncooperative” and “ruined relationships.”
His most brutal judgment came when he allegedly called Starmer “a loser with no future”; It was a characterization that went further than anything he had ever said publicly about the Labor leader.
‘An act of great stupidity’
Turning to the Chagos agreement in the Oval Office, Trump said: “I will say that the UK has been very, very uncooperative against that stupid island that they own, give away, and get a 100-year lease on, which maybe has to do with indigenous people claiming the island who have never seen it before. What’s all this about?”
He had already taken the first step in the deal regarding Truth Social, calling it “an act of great stupidity”.
Starmer eventually relented and opened RAF Fairford and Diego Garcia to “limited defence” US operations two days after closing the door. The retrograde did nothing to soften the mood; The relationship between the two leaders, which began on cautious and civilized terms, has now turned into something much more hostile.
