Nigel Farage has welcomed the intervention by President Trump over the Chagos Islands deal and warned the UK is “defenceless” without the US.

Speaking on GB News Nigel Farage said:
“What the British government did, they went around Washington just over a year ago telling the US administration they had to surrender sovereignty of the Chagos legally, and that’s why they done the 100 year lease back deal.

“And the Americans shrugged their shoulders and said, Well, this is the least, worst option. I’ve been lobbying as hard as I can on this for months.

“What the Americans have now woken up to is the fact the British did not tell them the truth. There was no legal basis for this whatsoever.

“And despite this, the government is still pushing on tonight in the House of Commons, throwing back to the House of Lords some improvements and amendments, as the House of Lords saw it.

“I simply don’t believe this can go on. I simply don’t believe that when David Lammy told us a year ago, if the Americans didn’t like this, we’d stop it. I think what’s happening tonight is a charade.

“I do believe that what Trump has done is to sink this Chagos deal below the waterline, at least. I very much hope so.

“[Starmer] believes in national self determination. He believes in the United Nations when it applies to Greenlanders, but not to Chagossians. And he believes in international law as and when it suits him.

“And what’s extraordinary tonight is we were expecting to vote on some amendments in the House of Commons on giving the British Chagossians a referendum, and that’s been ruled out by the government as having no legal force. So we’re not even getting a chance to do that.

“The minister, Stephen Doughty, just said at the dispatch box, I’ve listened to a range of opinions from British Chagossians. Well, you know what? I don’t believe him.

“I think what we did learn is that Speaker Mike Johnson did talk to the President last night. Mike Johnson might have been surprised just how strong I was on this particular question. So, I can’t say Game, set and match GB News, but I can say we’ve been very influential in what we’ve heard from the President about this Chagos Island surrender overnight. And you know what? As a channel, we should be proud of ourselves for playing our part in this.

“You can’t find it out [the cost] because it is adjusted for inflation over 99 years. So on the original settlement, if inflation runs at 2% on average over 99 years, it will cost the British taxpayer £35 billion. If it runs at 3% it will cost the British taxpayer £52 billion. Bear in mind, we are paying for what we actually own ourselves.

“This is the worst deal I have ever seen in history. It is bad for our national security, it’s going to upset the Americans enormously. And whatever we think of some of the things Donald Trump says, remember, without the Americans, we are literally defenceless.

“It’s going to cost the British taxpayer a fortune that it doesn’t need to spend and is an absolute betrayal of the rights of the Chagossians, who, frankly, we’ve treated terribly for the best part of 60 years.

“All I can think is that what Starmer is doing is potentially damaging our relationship. The military base on Diego Garcia is America’s most important military base in the world outside of mainland America.

“If we found this treaty went through and within a couple of years, there were serious spying and listening operations taking place against the US forces, we then would have lost one of the most important contributions that we make to that special relationship.

“So it is, long term for our own security very, very dangerous indeed.”

Discussing the High Court decision over local elections, Nigel Farage said:

“We were in the High Court today. We’ve got through the first phase; there’ll be a full hearing on the 19th and 20th of February, a full judicial review in the High Court, where we will argue that there is no reasonable justification for cancelling these elections, in some cases, for a second year in a row.

“And whilst it’s dangerous to predict what’s going to happen in legal cases, I honestly believe we’ve a very, very strong argument.

“If we win our judicial review, and we think the odds are in our favour, he’ll have to U turn, and all of those elections would have to go ahead. So we’re going to fight all the way on this one. We really are.”