Kemi Badenoch has branded Nigel Farage's suggestion to "trade" the Chagos Islands with Donald Trump as "humiliating", after the Reform UK leader proposed offering the archipelago to the US President.
The Conservative Party leader called out Mr Farage for telling a podcast he would offer Mr Trump the islands as part of a "trade", if the US President agreed to "stop talking about the Falkland Islands".
Farage's proposal on the Benny Show
Speaking to the Benny Show podcast, Mr Farage 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'."
Ms Badenoch criticised his words, saying: "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."
Badenoch's response
She added: "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."
Reaction from the White House and Reform
However, she has now been slapped down by both Reform and the White House, and been accused of spreading fake news. A White House 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."
Reform were also furious, with a Nigel Farage spokesman saying: "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."
The sovereignty of the British-controlled archipelago in the Indian Ocean has been the subject of ongoing discussion between the UK government and Mauritius, with a deal to cede sovereignty put on hold earlier this year after the US withdrew its support. The islands are home to Diego Garcia, a joint UK-US military base that hosts "super-secret" facilities in a region under strategic threat from China.
