Our membership of the ICJ is a model of how to belong to an international body if you want to. We joined by unilateral declaration. It made clear the ICJ has no power over us in disputes between the UK and the Commonwealth. At any time we can amend our Declaration unilaterally . In 2017 we strengthened the omission of certain nuclear matters. We could cancel our membership any time.
The government’s idea that we were about to lose a case in this court was odd, as for years there has been no such move. Not only does the ICJ not apply here but how could Mauritius or the Court enforce any such ruling as the Diego Garcia base is a key US military asset?
This deal is another example of the government giving in needlessly in international negotiations and sending a big bill to the taxpayer. Every time the PM negotiates the UK loses.
I did point out well in advance of the surrender the legal position and showed the relevant document on GB News.
May 24, 2025
Chagos is just the latest example of the ….. 2TK destroying Britain. He has sold us out to the EU with a reported bill upwards of £10billion annually
Government borrowing is out of hand and shortly the Bond Market will bring the largesse to a screeching halt. Japan was unable to sell its debt without a hefty premium and we’re nudging 5%.
(The PM. ed) is in a hurry to inflict as much damage as quickly as possible because very soon the whole house of cards is going to collapse around him.
etc ed
May 24, 2025
Ian.
Two etc eds before 0600 suggests you must have expressed yourself with conviction.
Every Englishman venturing beyond our shores is now tainted with the mendacity of 2TK and his ragbag government.
May 24, 2025
Chagos is also now a case study. How long before Argentina make noises about The Falklands, or Spain wanting Gibraltar?
May 24, 2025
I can remember in 1982 the buzz word was ‘self-determination’ ……let the Chagosians decide their own fate by election
Have our parliament and politicans forgotton about the people’s ‘self-determination’
May 24, 2025
I’ve just read an article in The Mail online about asylum seekers in Hillingdon. There’s loads in hotels but a tent city is growing.
At the end it mentioned that 129 people have recently arrived from the Chagos Islands….the government is obliged to pay for them if they have dependents, but will only pay their costs for the first ten days!
Things are going from bad to worse for everyone!
May 24, 2025
The problem of Gibraltar is ‘almost settled’ as part of the Closer to the EU – our friends and partners deal.
May 24, 2025
Sir Keir’s motivation continues to baffle. (words left out ed) We know he’s a lawyer but even that is not normally enough to excuse doing really crazy things.
His stated reasons for giving away sovereign territory are demonstrably false, but he never has a problem with telling whopping great whoppers that everyone knows are whoppers.
It is all very odd. etc ed
Reply Several of you want to discuss motives and inner thoughts of the PM. I am not publishing comments which accuse him of bad things without good evidence.I have no reliably clear view of why he wanted sell outs to the EU and Mauritius. It has been his long held view to be pro EU and he always takes international law as if it were a clear set of instructions against the UK which we have to follow.
May 24, 2025
And when he’s gone we’ll have the delight of Angela Rayner at the reins.
A local Labour MP a little while ago expressed the opinion the government can print the money it needs. I hope I misunderstood him, but I fear I haven’t, and there are a large number of his colleagues who think the same way.
Do we have the awful prospect of a collapsed economy but the government stays in power because the turkeys won’t vote for Christmas?
May 24, 2025
Sir John,
“Every time the PM negotiates the UK loses.”
The PM does not negotiate for the benefit of the UK, but he does achieve his ambition every time.
It looks rather treasonous to me.
May 24, 2025
Indeed, Srarmer gave Indian immigrants a tax advantage over British worker . He negotiated a deal with the US that ended up with us in a worse position and the US having a tariff advantage over us. The EU where like Treasonous May he has handed the EU all they want without getting anything concrete for us . This bizarre Chagos deal that defies logic , and something that has slipped past without notice he has signed us up to the the CCP owned WHO and their pandemic treaty
May 24, 2025
“Indeed, Srarmer gave Indian immigrants a tax advantage over British worker .”
No, he didn’t. He negotiated a “no double taxation” agreement for workers on temporary placements. The UK has many, many such agreements with many, many countries.
Or maybe you believe that double taxation is a good thing?
May 24, 2025
Good Morning,
The legal arguments, and more recently the ‘security’ arguments, put forward so far don’t hold up. So what is the real motivation pushing the 2TK government to do this act of national harm?
The fact that a human rights advocate has neither listened to, much less sought, the views of the displaced indigenous population, nor had the honesty to disclose fully the terms of the sale of a national asset, speaks of nefarious motives. There should be an investigation.
May 24, 2025
There was no legal necessity to transfer the Sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. There was no moral necessity to do it, since Mauritius had never held Sovereignty. And there was no genuine military reason, just a made up “concern” about Communications being compromised.
Following Two-Tier’s grovelling and highly embarrassing visit to Trump last year, the President’s comment on the proposal apart from saying it was a good deal (for the USA) was that Two-Tier FELT GUILTY about colonialism.
I don’t find it at all difficult to believe that Two-Tier and his north London Socialist Lawyer friends want to assuage their colonial guilt with OUR money, but I don’t understand why impartial senior Civil Servants in the Foreign Office would try to push the same policy on successive Prime Ministers.
What’s the real reason for the treachery; is it to appease China?
May 24, 2025
China will become our best friend. Reynard is going to give the green light to the building of the huge new Chinese Embassy shortly. Wait and see.
May 24, 2025
Reyner.
May 24, 2025
Why build a large embassy when Chinese are now in every walk of life in this country ensuring an ever stronger hold on what things meet their approval?
May 24, 2025
Only Robbins, who was TM’s choice of civil servant to help her capitulate to Brussels, has been head hunted by Starmer to run the Foreign Office. Along with his friend and never elected rights lawyer as Attorney General, who instructed civil servants to abide by international laws, he has fellow travellers around him to help sell out the UK.
May 24, 2025
I agree with you that there is no clear case for Mauritius to be given sovereignty over the Chagos Islands. From a purely geographical point of view the Chagos Islands appear to be on the Indian continental shelf albeit situated right at the southern tip of the Chagos Laccadive Ridge. The deep Vema Trench separates Chagos from the Seychelles and Mauritius which are both part of the Mascarene Ridge.
May 24, 2025
@Robert T
Giving away the Chagos Islands, is crazy. A variety of people, including lawyers, even a psychologist, have puzzled over the logic! It really makes no sense! Is there something we should know?
May 24, 2025
So everything that 2TK has said about ceding control of Diego Garcia to maintain our and US security is one big manufactured lie.
How is it that it can be made to happen before its total dishonesty can be exposed in Parliament. I know that Labour has the numbers and can do as they wish, but what is the purpose of Parliament or opposition.
Within the whole sorry mess there are the ethnically cleansed Diego Garcians. 2TK’s legal sensibilities seem totally untouched by the plight of those the UK quite deliberately turned into refugees. The man is a total hypocrocy, a true example of Perfideus Albion.
May 24, 2025
One big lie – seems so.
Sustained student protests at Cambridge move King’s College to sever its financial ties to weapons manufacturers – they already have divested from fossil fuel investments. Though I assume they are still perfectly happy to use gas and oil to heat their building & cook their dinners and petrol and diesel to fuel their vehicles and lawn mowers? Will they be happy to defend the country with just some sticks and stones perhaps when needed?
May 24, 2025
Almost everything he said before the election was one big lie too.
May 24, 2025
Starmer not alone in that!
May 24, 2025
But is perhaps the fastest at breaking his promises and trashing his reputation in less than a year. While getting everything wrong for the country too.
May 24, 2025
Indeed.
JR please can you explain what has driven Starmer & Lammy to this appalling, dangerous and hugely expensive betrayal of the UK interests? I have heard no cogent explanation that make any sense at all. Does he actually hate the UK, is he deluded & mad? The same question on Net Zero and the EU betrayal. At least Trump has sensibly told him to drill baby drill to get energy prices down to 1/4 of current as in the US. Richard Dearlove also tells him Net Zero is higely dangerous for our defence.
Ed Miliband’s “completely mad” net zero drive is a threat to national security, a former head of MI6 has warned.
Sir Richard Dearlove said the Energy Secretary’s push to achieve clean power by 2030 and net zero carbon emissions by 2050 played into the hands of Beijing.
China provides much of the renewable energy infrastructure needed to decarbonise Britain’s energy grid. It is also the market leader for electric vehicle manufacturing.
Sir Richard, who served as chief of the Secret Intelligence Service from 1999 until 2004, said Mr Miliband was pressing ahead with his green policies in an “irrational” way.
He told the i paper: “The problem is you’ve got the ideological Ed Miliband pursuing zero carbon without a thought for the impact on national security.
“The whole policy is completely mad… He probably thinks: ‘I’m dealing with a more serious problem, which is climate change, and that comes first.’ It’s so irrational. It is seriously problematic.”
May 25, 2025
Personally, I think both Two-Tier and Red Ed are “buying” their post-Government careers in the Globalists’ Quangocracy by selling-out OUR country and with OUR money.
May 24, 2025
Off topic, a letter to our local newspaper, the Maidenhead Advertiser:
“If we go to a shop to buy some cheese we do not expect £160 to be added to the bill to cover the cost of veterinary certification of its safety.
Nor would all the other customers in the shop expect to find £160 added to each of their bills, whether for a small wedge or a whole wheel.
Yet according to the BBC that is precisely what happened when a cheese-maker in Derbyshire attempted to serve its customers in the EU.
Not enough for the EU to have the company certified as a trustworthy source of cheese made to EU standards, each piece must be certified.
Has the UK government ever protested about this totally unreasonable behaviour by the EU? Is it not really a disguised restriction on trade?
But the current government has found a solution, a way to get the EU to remove the protectionist barriers it has erected against our exports.
All it needs is for everybody in the UK who produces goods to follow all EU rules all the time, whether or not they ever export to the EU.
And for the EU to conduct spot checks, and for the EU court to decide whether all the goods produced in the UK conform to all EU laws.
There may have been a time when this country would stand up to a bully, but no longer. Not under the Tories, Labour or Liberal Democrats.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyjj6lnly6o
“Cheese-maker calls EU deal ‘a major leap forward'”
“Mr Spurrell, who lives in Rushton Spencer, on the Derbyshire-Cheshire border, said he had to pay £160 per veterinary certification on all retail orders in Europe – even for cheese orders worth £20”
BBC report from March 2021:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-56360131
“Derbyshire cheese maker upset at £180 post-Brexit Stilton fee”
“Simon Spurrell, the director of Hartington Creamery, said each parcel, pallet or container of Stilton required a veterinary surgeon certificate costing £180 per destination.
With the average online order costing just £30, he said there was “absolutely no way” they could continue with what was a lucrative online sales business before Brexit.”
May 24, 2025
You can understand Trump’s frustration with them. I don’t think the US will cave into them.
May 24, 2025
+1 a situation repeated endlessly both EU drive. and UK driven.
I once had a half built house with no boiler and now windows in at the time. Someone wanted to buy it but I had to pay for Energy Performance Certificate before the agent could act.
May 24, 2025
This may be one reason why average incomes in the EU have risen by half as much as in the US since 2000:
https://commission.europa.eu/topics/eu-competitiveness/draghi-report_en
May 24, 2025
That was the Brexit deal the Conservatives negotiated. If you don’t like it, direct your frustration at Boris Johnson and Lord Frost as that was their “oven ready deal to get Brexit done”. That deal had negative consequences. This is one example of that. (FYI, moving to WTO terms would not have been an improvement to the situation you describe.)
May 25, 2025
You are right, insofar as falling back on WTO terms would not have stopped the EU defying WTO rules by erecting unnecessary barriers to our goods exports. However in that case we would not have been supplicating for a new trade treaty with the EU as the WTO treaties already existed, and the UK and the EU and all its member states were parties to those existing treaties.
As for the cost of these protectionist barriers against our goods exports we can see how little the government hopes to gain from their removal. And the lack of any objective justification for those barriers is shown up by the fact that eg cheese which is now seen as so risky that every portion must have its own veterinary certificate will suddenly become much safer under the proposed reset deal, not because of any change in the EU rules or because the company producing it will start to follow EU rules more strictly but because other unrelated actors in the UK economy will all start to obey all EU rules under the supervision of the EU institutions.
Reply The EU has often behaved badly to us, in or out of the organisation. Just look at continuing French efforts to damage our fishing industry after years of the CFP shrinking our catch.
May 26, 2025
Had the UK opted for WTO terms, trade would have faced not just the current non-tariff barriers (which are not unique to the UK), but tariffs and quotas as well.
As for your cheese example, there are multiple ways to ensure that a particular standard is followed. One is to make it the national, legislative standard. However, if a country chooses not to do that (and they don’t have to), then individual exporters face the burden of proving compliance. That is entirely normal, and the problems faced by cheese exporters (and others) were entirely of the Conservative’s making in the Brexit deal they chose to negotiate and agree to.
May 24, 2025
This whole sorry mess confirms that like Enoch Powell you can be too intelligent and honest for membership of Parliament, but that there is no limit on dishonesty or stupidity.
May 24, 2025
Indeed.
Someone on Talk Radio today “the best PM we never had” said John Redwood – surely correct we would surely be vastly better off had they followed his sould advice for 45+ years! Did he vote to leave in the Wilson Common Market referendum in 1975? I think so, I would have done but was a bit too young to do so. He also, unlike nearly all the potty scientifically illitereate MPs, did not vote for the insanity of Miliband’s climate change act (Widecombe and Lilly too), and was against the ERM/EURO and called most other things right too.
Reply Voted No to staying in EEC 1975
May 25, 2025
A great shame they did not follow your v. sensible advice! Indeed did the reverse most of the time. Even Thatcher did to a degree like appointing Major and letting him join the ERM with a view to joining the EURO. That that disaster did perhaps get us the referendum in the end and keep us out of the EURO.
May 24, 2025
Perhaps we should have used the Chagos Islands for a refugee/transition camp for our illegals if we owned it.
It would not have cost us anywhere near as much as other suggested locations, and they certainly would not be undertaking an illegal boat ride to escape from there.
Would have solved two problems in one, proved we owned it, and would be a secure location.
As it is we have the worse of both Worlds, we have given up control, are paying to do so, whilst making it less secure for the West when tensions are growing.
Hardly a negotiation, more like the usual daft policy of a costly surrender in all but name.
May 24, 2025
BA : “Perhaps we should have used the Chagos Islands for a refugee/transition camp for our illegals if we owned it.”
No, the Rwanda plan is better. This will cost far less as the “asylum seekers” will go simply go back home once they have been transported to Rwanda and found they cannot stay in the UK with free accomodation, free health and social care, £40/week pocket money, free entertainment and training and the freedom to roam our streets including around schools.
Sending these people to the Chagos Islands would destroy its wonderful and unique ecosystem.. It is one of the richest, natural marine environments remaining anywhere in the world.
May 24, 2025
As I understand it, the Tory government started/was in similar negotiations. If the legal case is so flawed/lacking in any validity/enforceability, why didn’t LOTO make much more noise/raised awareness that Starmers position was false.
Obviously a good excuse for the Starmer haters to pile in but looking objectively the issue is not as clear cut as you make out.
Reply Conservative Ministers allowed discussions with Mauritius which officials wanted. Cameron as Foreign Sec rightly decided this was a bad idea and refused to proceed with a give away.
May 24, 2025
Ah – those men in grey suits at the Ministry again….
May 24, 2025
@JR reply; But that was before Nov. 2024, since when Mauritius the government changed.
I doubt many are suggesting the UK govt prior to 10 Nov. 2024 was wrong to veto such an agreement, there was an unstable and problematic Mauritian government back then (who were cozening up to questionable nations), one who may well have found its-self held to account at the ICJ on other issues. Circumstances change.
May 24, 2025
And will change again over 99 years.
May 24, 2025
@NS: As will every world government, bar perhaps China, North Korea and Russia.
What if someone like Mr B Sanders or ‘AOC’ were to become the POTUS; What is someone similar in political thoughts to Mr Corbyn or Mr Galloway were to become Prime Minster of the UK. Far fetched? Some might suggest, but then many thought Trump becoming POTUS, Johnson becoming the UK Prime Minister was down the garden path, and remember 8 June 2017…
May 25, 2025
The nature of the Mauritian Government is irrelevant. China is a Communist nation; that didn’t stop the UK from handing back Hong Kong when the lease expired.
We don’t only do “deals” with foreign Governments we approve of. There was no justification to transfer Sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, regardless of who was running the Mauritian Government. There could be a coup next week!
May 24, 2025
What is the point of joining the ICJ (or any court for that matter) is we refuse to accept judgments that go against our past actions. Would any elected government allow their citizens to opt out of the countries civil or criminal court judgments, ‘sorry, I’m not paying the fine or serving time as I do not subscribe to those rules/laws!’, it’s absurd proposition.
Perhaps our host should check with the POTUS, via the White House (press office), what the US actually thinks, before suggesting a “key US military asset” is now at risk, given that Starmer asked for Trump’s sign-off on this. Has Trump, the Pentagon, the US intl agencies, also go it all so wrong?
Reply The ICJ requires a country to declare itself under its remit. Each country doing so sets out the basis and states exceptions or where its sovereign powers take precedence. If you do not like that system you need to take it up with the UN who would need to persuade many countries to accept something different.
The US accepted heavy lobbying by the UK on Chagos as a favour to the UK. They did so because the UK will pay the lease and has promised to avoid the obvious pitfalls of a different country owning it. The UK may find delivering the promises difficult.
May 24, 2025
@ jerry – recall the international community comprises of states that are sovereign: there is no superior authority able to compel them to submit to laws other than on a voluntary basis. The UK has so submitted excepting with the reservations Sir John mentions, as it was fully entitled to do. Other states have also made reservations: the alternative would be very many fewer states recognizing the ICJ which cannot be a preferable outcome. (Individual citizens of a state are, of course, not themselves sovereign so are not in the same position as states in the international community.)
May 24, 2025
Given that the UK apparently removed the Chagos isles from the governance of Mauritius shortly before we granted independence to Mauritius in 1968 it would appear there are questions over who has a legitimate claim of sovereignty over the Island, and there is also the little matter of the displaced Ilois.
The ICJ does have the right to make judgments circumstances were sovereignty is disputed, would anyone entertain the notion of Russia telling the ICJ to butt-out of their affairs simply because Russia has claimed sovereignty over the Crimea – as I said, it’s an absurd notion.
As for the suggestion the US accepted heavy lobbying with regards the Chagos, I can’t buy that as the reason for signing-off on this, if the nay-naysayers are correct then it makes Trump and the US look even more inept than Starmer!
May 24, 2025
You and I have to abide by the law, but then those laws are put in place by democratic governments. If you don’t like British Law, go and live somewhere else. The international courts make decisions based on their own made up law with no democratic oversight.
Just treat them as legal opinion, which our government can consider or ignore at their discretion.
Oh and we need better democratic oversight of UK judges as well.
May 24, 2025
@Dave Andrews; “laws are put in place by democratic governments. If you don’t like British Law, go and live somewhere else.”
Very true, what is more, those who do not like how our democratically elected govt acts have the same choice to “go and live somewhere else” (thanks to -err- international laws and courts). Perhaps you should take your own advice!
May 24, 2025
Excellent post Dave.
May 25, 2025
@MiB; Yes, an excellent, baseless, rant. 🙁
May 25, 2025
Don’t be so hard on yourself Jerry.
May 25, 2025
+1
May 24, 2025
All sorts of people using this as an excuse to get very agitated. A few islands in the middle of nowhere make zero difference to my day to day life. I have more important things to occupy my mind.
Reply You will pay more tax as a result of this.
May 24, 2025
@ Reply – indeed, why should NigL’s “few islands in the middle of nowhere” become such a financial burden of long-standing? Why was there any financial aspect to the deal at all?
May 24, 2025
Why is Starmer permitted to give away UK assets without a referendum of the people? What next the Isle of Wight, Angelsey…
May 24, 2025
This when only 20% of the electorate voted Labour! Democracy or the Latin version “Populism” this certainly is not!
May 24, 2025
I take it you’re arguing for replacing FPTP with a form of PR and compulsory voting.
May 25, 2025
@ Peter P
Not at all. Why on earth would you jump to those conclusions more direct democracy would be good. Voting for liars who will not even try to do what they promised, once every five years with no choice over the candidates and only 2 or 3 might realistically win is patently not democracy.
May 26, 2025
I would conclude that, if someone is complaining that a majority government got the support of only 20% of registered voters (which is perfectly possible under FPTP), then they could be arguing for governments/parliaments which better represent the preferences of the electorate. That can be achieved with compulsory voting combined with PR. Compulsory voting combined with FPTP will just force many people to waste their time or be criminalised for choosing not to do something entirely pointless (due to FPTP having wasted votes).
Direct democracy is something I’m actually wary of given how little understanding of so many issues so many people seem to be. For example, how many people who voted Leave in 2016 are still saying “we haven’t left yet” 4 years after the UK left the EU?
May 25, 2025
We have a Prime Minister who appears to be acting against the interests of the UK and British citizens and who is now being challenged for misleading the public about the true costs of his “deal” (aka lying) but “you have more important things to think about.”
So you’re obviously not a patriot and probably shouldn’t involve yourself in serious political discussions. Perhaps you should stick to discussing the weather?
May 24, 2025
Being a member of a club where those who lead and run it act in hostile ways against us serves no useful purpose. The UK can be independently separate and maintain our own higher standards, well out of it. The EU was a similar example, causing unwanted and bad outcomes. Almost one year of the UK’s 5-year subscription to Labour has expired. Next time, people should choose to support a sensible leader. Keir Starmer acts foolishly as if he is our enemy.
May 24, 2025
‘Keir Starmer acts foolishly as if he is our enemy.’
As if?
May 24, 2025
Starmer is a Europhile, Islamophile and Anglophobic. Everything he’s done since becoming PM, harms Britain.
May 24, 2025
Sir John, Have you got a link to the document you mentioned?
Reply Go to International Court of Justice site. UK Declaration, last updated 2017. The exemptions to jurisdiction are listed in first para.
May 24, 2025
It is presented to us as ‘court’ but the ICJ is a joke of a court , there for the likes of the Chinese state to push their agenda , and ‘anti colonialist’ advocates to give the West a kicking . It is utterly ridiculous for us to have complied with this ‘judgement’, when we had vice president of the (ICJ), one Xue Hanqin, a Chinese diplomat , who was best buddies with the Russian judge , and who came out in support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. How sick is it of Starmer to have accepted this advisory ruling ?
May 24, 2025
The Prime Minister appears to have lied to us about the benefits of this deal. Some of his arguments appear to be untruthful.
I hope I am wrong, but if he is lying he must resign as PM
May 24, 2025
His maths are not too good either… £101million times 99 years is a minimum of £10.1 billion, add inflation etc. to that certainly north of £20.billion. And what did he say? £3.4 billion. A deliberate attempt to mislead the British public.
May 24, 2025
He doesn’t know what deceit is but it is time he resigned for his deceit and misrepresentation
May 24, 2025
By early 2022, the Bank had bought £875 billion of UK government bonds. However, recent reductions in the balance sheet have now trimmed the government bond portfolio down to £693 billion as of the latest figures.
They are selling bonds at huge losses to keep interest rates UP in order to stop inflation. Inflation has just gone up from 2.5% to 3.5%. So the sell off is going to continue.
The question is how long before they run out of bonds to sell ? At this rate they will run out of bonds to sell before the next election.
May 24, 2025
Just add inflation has been caused by tax increases and public sector payrises.
So this Government is paying for spending by selling bonds.
May 24, 2025
And to pay for the extortionate tax we have to pay, we are selling everything else.
Let’s face it, the vast majority of current Britons are not worthy of their inheritance.
May 24, 2025
It’s like I said yesterday:
There is no justification for any of the treaties Starmer has signed off on – all of them make us worse off, and only a marxist who hates his own country would have signed them.
While marxists don’t believe in religion, they do believe in a higher authority – because it has little credence the ICJ becomes the entity they put above all others, but only while it suits their purpose.
May 24, 2025
As if this country wasn’t hemorrhaging enough money from failed projects, quangos and supporting any country but ours, we learn that the:
UK government funds idiotic project to remove CO2 from the oceans
The idiocy and wanton waste of this government knows no bounds.
History will not be kind to them for they will be categorised alongside the likes of King Canute – if we survive them!
May 24, 2025
You wrong King Canute. He wisely demonstrated he could not turn back the tide, in order to rebuke his courtiers for flattery. Schools used to know that but the story has been reversed for some reason.
May 24, 2025
The word ‘international’ to anything in terms of agreements, conventions and mutual understandings are just that arrangements between parties that when it is mutually acceptable for both ends of a deal and how they will proceed.
Hence there is no such thing as an international law, therefore there can be no such thing as an international court.
Laws real laws are made by all people, for the benefit of all the people and as such in a free society take democracy to create them, with the option to amend and repeal should circumstance ‘the people’ require it, is also part of the process. These laws also have legitimate courts to up hold them – hence the reason the ECHR and the ECJ can never be legitimate there position isn’t democratically arrived at.
May 24, 2025
@Ian B
Interesting conclusion – so the legal position of international law is flimsy at best.
Time to re-evaluate what international treaties should mean, and challenge them. The ICJ is but another component of the NWO to get us directly under a single world government
May 24, 2025
@Bryan Harris – exactly, that’s why a lot just ignore them. It only falls down when one party agrees to it one day, changes their mind the next and then expects the other party to agree the next time. It is purely a way of registering mutual agreements.
May 24, 2025
David Starkey foretold this. He said we would have the rule of lawyers, which is precisely why this shabby surrender deal has been done.
May 24, 2025
Starkey is very late to the party. He thinks Farage started the anti-EU/Common Market movement ‘as an individual’!
Where was Starkey for the last 60 years when he was adult enough to join in the fight to maintain our country and constitution?
May 24, 2025
Indeed. Lawyers who can take everything through endless layers of courts earning every more with each appeal. The Lawyers win regardless!
May 24, 2025
@JM, – is it Lawyers, Judges or just ill thought out laws created in a well meaning knee jerk situation. It is our Legislators that are at fault they can change/amend and repeal everything. The fact they don’t, is it just laziness or group pressure from their gang boss?
May 24, 2025
“Everybody wants to rule the world” as the song goes and in Starmer’s mind the top chief of the ICJ will be his idea of what it means to rule in the legal sense as he uses his knighthood and PM status to travel the world burnishing his appetite to plug or spin “Doing the right thing” in his shallow thinking mind.
And nothing travels as fast as news of some idiot overturning proverbial Apple carts.
May 24, 2025
The ICJ is a win win for china
May 24, 2025
Totally agree; but what is the root cause of this Governments supine attitude towards both foreign governments and international bodies such as the UN, the WHO and the ICJ ? Is it Ministers in the Government , or advisers within and without the Civil Service ?
May 24, 2025
Chagos Islands not in their manifesto
EU deal not in their manifesto
12 year fisheriers EU extension not in their manifesto
Increase in NI not in their manifesto
Increase in farmers inheritance tax not in their manifesto
Stopping the winter fuel payment not in their manifesto
Any one else seeing a trend ???
May 24, 2025
The basis of the claim of Mauritius to the Chagos Islands is presumably that at one time they were administered jointly by the Foreign Office in much the same way that the Bolsheviks administered the South Eastern Oblasts as part of their newly created country of Ukraine, one of about twenty new divisions of the Czarist Empire.
Unless the British government, when granting independence to Mauritius, expressly included the Chagos Islands as part of Mauritian sovereign territory, bearing in mind they are not even in the same oceanic archipelago, their claim is clearly without foundation so why an international court whose judgments are not enforceable should be taken seriously by the British government when it is manifestly wrong is incomprehensible.
May 24, 2025
You are right; there is no geographical reason to join the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. The Chagos Islands lie at the southern tip of the Chagos Laccadive Ridge which runs north to the western coast of India and Sri Lanka. Chagos is separated from the Mascarene Ridge , which has the Seychelles at the northern tip and Mauritius at its southern tip by the deep Velma Trench which divides them. Diego Garcia is in fact much closer to the Seychelles than it is to Mauritius.
So , why Mauritius ? This choice is so inexplicable and unjustifiable that it only leads to suspicion about the motives of those who promoted this policy.
May 24, 2025
The betrayed Chagos Islanders have said that they wish to appeal the court decision to ignore their rights. Unfortunately the judiciary has been able to self select judges with the same political views as Starmer.
May 24, 2025
We learn that Trump has thrown in the towel as regards ending the Ukraine war.
Starmer really must be pleased with himself – that’s just what he wanted – a continuing war to weaken Russia and millions of good people wasting their lives on the killing fields. WW3 just got closer.
If our great internationalist leader had not intervened, promising support and money to keep the war going, it would have all been over by now.
Never mind him being international by nature – He isn’t even on Earth’s side.
May 24, 2025
Our government(s) nolonger serve the people of the UK, they serve the international global elite organisations ….the development over the recent decades, towards international law, the UN and all its bodies, should be a worry to everyone
May 24, 2025
Correct. And Two-Tier is spending his Premiership applying (with our money) for a highly lucrative position in “The Globalist Elite Club” when he gets kicked out of No.10
May 24, 2025
The office of the Prime Minister, and to some extent, any cabinet office, puts a unique pressure on the individual holding the office. In the office, the real character of the person is revealed. Some people grow into the office and become better people. Some people shrink under the pressure and become worse people.
Our current PM has shrunk in office and revealed his real character. He has no love for, or belief in, the UK and its people. After the Chagos and the EU sell out deals I can’t see him lasting another four years!
If a PM governs without an anchoring set of beliefs, they fail. That is what we are seeing now with Starmer and the rest of the mediocre government.
May 24, 2025
@Keith from Leeds +1
May 24, 2025
It is extraordinary that a PM can give away UK territory without a vote in Parliament let alone a referendum. Especially a PM whose government was elected with a 30% share of the vote and just 20% support from the total electorate and bearing in mind that a Parliament only has temporary sovreignty until the mext GE. Do the Chagossians have no say in the matter? What’s next to be given away? The Falklands? Gibralter? N.I.? Scotland or Wales? Or the whole of the UK (to the EU?)? You would think that the King would want to step in to prevent any loss of his UK territory and dissolve Parliament so that another GE could be called as a referendum on the issue.
Reply Parliament could stop the PM giving away these islands, but is unlikely to do so. A majority of MPs would need to take over the Order paper and force a debate and vote. The government may need legislation to give effect to the Agreement and will need approval for the money. I expect enough Labour MPs will endorse this.
May 24, 2025
Reply : What about the King please?
Reply The King will do nothing. He has to accept the will of Parliament. This give away is the will of the Commons as no Labour MP is proposing to vote it down or even asking for a vote.
May 24, 2025
Reply : “The government may need legislation to give effect to the Agreement and will need approval for the money.” :
And maybe not as PM May’s Net Zero by 2050 was passed without a proper debate, without a vote and without a costing and hence without approval for the money?
May 24, 2025
Our membership of the ICJ is a model of how to belong to an international body if you want to. We joined by unilateral declaration. It made clear the ICJ has no power over us in disputes between the UK and the Commonwealth. At any time we can amend our Declaration unilaterally….We could cancel our membership any time.”
So the next administration can delare the current PM as either insane or treacherous or both and simply cancel this agreement. Who, apart from our enemies, such as Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and China would disagree?
So the next administration can delare the current PM as (wrong ed) or both and simply cancel this agreement. Who, apart from our enemies, such as Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and China would disagree?
If the PM agrees to accept every decision made by trumped up international courts run by our enemies we’re in for a tough time…where will it stop?
Reply No. Once the UK has approved the Agreement and Parliament has voted the money the whole will be under international law. The UK could under a new government make it even clearer this matter is not under the jurisdiction of the ICJ, but some lawyers will argue the UK has to honour past Agreements anyway. That needs to be debated in a General election and Mauritius needs warning a future government may unilaterally want to cancel. This would be possible in practice assuming Mauritius had not settled people on the islands but very problematic if others have gone to live there under Mauritian sovereignty. Many in the UK would be against breaking the Agreement despite it being a bad deal.
May 24, 2025
Reply : So Mauritius will immediately populate the island then. Probably with Chinese.
May 24, 2025
Under the premise of building a port, roads and runway for Mauritius
May 24, 2025
reply to reply…..I disagree Sir John. I think since the 2016 Ref and Covid government decisions, many many people in the UK are tired of what we perceive to be anti-public opinion, if not treasonable activity with no clear mandate.
May 24, 2025
While waiting for the oven to slow cook some tomatoes for a tarte tatin I present some of my current thinking.
That of which you write today and many earlier days is merely symptomatic of all encompassing government incompetence. The only difference between this government and the previous one is their addition of envy and mendacity, a dressing that is a familiar characteristic of U.K. socialism.
The result is that nothing that is the responsibility of government works. Correct me if you can think of any function of government that does work. Whoever or whatever replaces current government will require a plan in detail to reset the whole of the public sector, the tax book, the nett zero insanity, and the residual but growing umbilical to the EU.
In simplistic terms I want our police forces run by thief takers, all government bodies to be answerable to ministers, and they to the public in Parliament. Whatever the political philosophy of the next government I want it run by people with a track record of success, driven by the mantra that you cannot spend it until you have earned it. Additionally I want the bulk of our population returned to a state of self sufficiency, where only those in real need become dependents. In Elizabethan times Drake was kept short of powder, so one of his first tasks was to take what he needed from the enemy. He was not required to fill out tick box forms before setting sail and his crew choices were on merit, not on diversity criteria. Nor was he put in court for giving the Armada a hard time of it.
That is where we have been led to today, where foreign law is allowed to take precedence over what is morally right. Grasp it, and the path forward will light up
May 24, 2025
The Chagos surrender sets a terrible precedent – stand by for Argentina applying to the ICJ for an advisory ruling on the Falklands. And now how could Starmer ignore it ? I assume actually the answer is he agrees with any “decolonisation” rulings made against the UK so he would secretly welcome such a ruling.
May 24, 2025
Draw conclusions?
A British fishing boat was in French custody today after allegedly being caught operating without a licence in the English Channel. The Lady T, which is based in Eastbourne, East Sussex, was being held in Boulogne-sur-Mer on Saturday and now risks being confiscated.
She was caught by the Pluvier, a French Navy ship, on Thursday, and the catamaran’s skipper now faces prosecution for fishing for whelks without a license. It comes days after Prime Minister Keir Starmer was heavily criticised over a landmark deal with the EU over fishing rights which hugely favour the French.
A spokesman for France’s Martime Prefecture said: ‘On Thursday, May 22, the French Navy’s public service patrol vessel, the Pluvier, conducted a fishing inspection in the French Exclusive Economic Zone, off the Somme Bay.
‘During this operation, which was part of the State’s maritime enforcement, a British fishing vessel was inspected by sailors from the Navy patrol vessel while fishing without a license in French waters.
‘As the offence was proved, the fishing vessel was diverted during the night of May 23rd to the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer, following the instructions of the Delegate for the Sea and Coastline, acting on behalf of the Regional Prefect, who oversees the fisheries police, for the purpose of initiating prosecution under the authority of the Public Prosecutor.’
The spokesman added: ‘This operation demonstrates the vigilance of State services in protecting fisheries resources and their determination to enforce regulations.
—
It certainly demonstrates vigilance, shame not as much spotting overloaded boats setting off from French coast!
May 24, 2025
44 criminals were smuggled into the UK yesterday; and escorted from the safe country of France…
May 25, 2025
I bet you don’t know how many were also in lorries, yachts and caravans?
May 25, 2025
They’re not recorded on the government website – https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/migrants-detected-crossing-the-english-channel-in-small-boats/migrants-detected-crossing-the-english-channel-in-small-boats-last-7-days
May 24, 2025
‘The Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 is broadly considered to be the first recognition of state sovereignty. From it, arose the doctrine of Westphalian sovereignty that remains a principle of international law. This principle emphasizes that each nation state has sovereignty over its territory and domestic affairs, to the exclusion of all external powers’
Where did it all go so wrong …..oh yes with the UN
May 24, 2025
That’s the thing about lawfare. One can use the law when it suits, ignore it when it doesn’t and pretend it has authority when it does not and distort it to suit knowing most of the public won’t bother to check an knowing one’s loyal identity group will propagate whatever lie or error one wants. And Starmer is as slippery as they come and profoundly opposed to everything the British people stand for.
May 30, 2025
I read a comment on Bruges Group facebook that we will not countenance this group if a Commonwealth country or previous Commonwealth country is involved. If this is so, why are we even talking to it and we should not have given away and bought back our own property. Good essay on this on recent Conservative Woman site which gives the history of the Chagos Islands if anyone is interested.