British Indian Ocean Territory

Bradley Thomas Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat]

As my right hon. Friend knows, the noble Lord, a former Labour Security Minister—and, of course, a former First Sea Lord—knows well that those bases occupy a crucial part not just in our airbases, with strategic reach into the middle east and south-east Asia, but in the intelligence collection business that sadly we need to engage in to keep our people safe. The idea that we should hand over those bases in order somehow to satisfy an advisory ruling is, I am afraid, wrong.

[Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend touches on the point about the ICJ. Does he agree that the ICJ decision is not only non-binding but perverse? Two of the judges on the court—Kirill Gevorgian, who is a key acolyte of Putin, and Xue Hanqin, a Chinese official—voted against condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and do not represent anything other than the interests of our adversaries.

[Tom Tugendhat]

The point that my hon. Friend makes correctly is that this is a political judgment. It is a rational and reasonable political judgment for Moscow and Beijing to make; the problem is that it is being made in Westminster.

This is an error. It is an error for which we will pay for generations; an error that will haunt us and cost us. On that basis, I urge the Government to do what they know is right, and not to continue with the argument that the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Louise Jones) made in pointing out that the Conservatives should never have started the talks. If that is true, why is Labour finishing them? Drop these talks and end this argument.