Labour making disastrous decisions on world stage due to guilt at British Empire

Sir Iain Duncan Smith, an original Brexiteer and former Tory leader, says Labour's EU deal will only serve to weaken Great Britain

- By David Williamson

FORMER Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith has a scathing verdict on Sir Keir Starmer's deals on EU fishing rights and the Chagos Islands: "It's been a giveaway week.

The veteran Brexiteer says the “French are laughing their heads off” in the wake of the Prime Minister’s Brexit “reset” deal which grants EU fishing vessels continued access to British waters until 2038.

“[ think it’s a terrible, terrible deal and it’s done out of weakness,” he says.

He is no less dismayed that Britain has signed the controversial agreement to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands — home to the UK-US Diego Garcia military base — to Mauritius.

Sir Iain now expects China to “muscle in” and expand its influence in the Indo-Pacific, predicting the arrangement, which is supposed to allow the UK to lease the base for 99 years, “won't last long”.

“China wants to take control of that area because it cuts the trade routes off east-west,” he says.

“It also allows them to influence events in the Middle East.”

He believes Labour MPs and Foreign Office figures feel guilt about the British Empire deep in their “bones” and this leads them to make disastrous decisions when China is reshaping the world.

“We have a new axis of totalitarian states,” he warns. “China, North Korea, Russia and Iran are working together to undermine democracies and destroy the free market.

“China has basically trashed the free market now because they subsidise businesses and they use slave labour and no private company can compete with them.”

The rise of China as a military power makes it even more important to support Ukraine in its battle against the Russian invasion, he argues.

If Viadimir Putin wins in Ukraine, he warns, “Taiwan is finished. China will know the West will do next to nothing about Taiwan.”