Category Archives: United States

Britain, China, Defence, Government, Military, National Security, Politics, United Nations, United States

Chagos deal risks the UK’s nuclear deterrent

CHAGOS ISLANDS

BRITAIN’S nuclear deterrent would be at risk from Chinese interference if the Prime Minister capitulates over the Chagos Islands.

A covert satellite system used to direct British and US nuclear missiles would be compromised if Keir Starmer signs off a deal with China-friendly Mauritius, it is feared.

The UK is currently locked in negotiations, led by Attorney General Lord Hermer and National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell, over handing over the strategically important islands in the Indian Ocean following a UN ruling.

The archipelago, controlled by the UK for more than two centuries, is home to the joint UK-US Diego Garcia military base. Britain is set to pay billions to Mauritius to lease the base back for 99 years under the terms of the deal.

But concerns have been raised that the UK’s system for coordinating nuclear missiles relies on connection points on the Diego Garcia base. To function properly, these “nodes” require physical protection and British control of the island’s electromagnetic spectrum.

However, the deal includes a clause saying other countries could also use the spectrum, from which Mauritius could profit.

This could offer Beijing a gateway to jamming the highly classified Automated Digital Network System 3 (ADNS 3), which is shared by the Royal Navy and the US Navy, and, which crucially, is part of the “Nuclear Firing Chain” (NFC). The deal would enhance UK national security, but without it, Britain would lose access to the spectrum. The future operation of the base without a deal would clearly be at risk.

Nonetheless, critics suggest that the government’s arguments are totally fabricated. They say that the islands are far more important than just this and the potential threat to our operations from a no deal is a total fiction from the pen of the Cabinet Office – and, by extension, the human rights law firm, Leigh Day.

Lord Hermer was a go-to barrister for Leigh Day before his appointment as Attorney General last year and he has been accused of a deference to international law over domestic needs.

Leigh Day is currently representing asylum seekers who claim they were trapped on the Chagos Islands after being rescued at sea by the Royal Navy. In 2019, the International Court of Justice ruled that Britain’s continued administration of the islands was unlawful.

Despite the UK ignoring the ruling, it was subsequently ratified by the UN General Assembly, which found the islands rightfully belonged to Mauritius. Sir Ben Wallace, a former defence secretary, said: “Many of the UN judges who made the flawed ruling come from totalitarian states including China.

“Is the PM really going to put their opinions before that of Britain’s security? Diego Garcia is British and must remain so.”

And, MP Tom Tugendhat said that in his former role of security minister, he had seen the advice on the implications of the deal, but the version being presented to the public was “nonsense”.

The settlement could also mean that the Royal Navy could be prevented from entering a buffer zone which Mauritius intends to set up around the islands.

Without any protection from Western navies, there is heightened fear that China could get close enough to the sensitive military facilities.

It is known that ADNS 3 provides assured tactical wide area networking between ships and shore around the world to support full battlespace connectivity.

Britain’s nuclear threat is carried by the Royal Navy’s bomber submarines. Any breakdown of communications or hostile interception of messages which are part of the NFC, or any other breach, would mean Britain losing its nuclear deterrent.

This is a highly technical matter, involving a lot of classified systems, which, according to critics, is being overlooked by government lawyers.

This part of the world is key to China’s expansionist agenda, and any deal with the UK would appear to facilitate that. These systems rely on guarantees around the security of Diego Garcia.

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Britain, Economic, Government, Politics, Society, United States

Shrinking the British state requires an Elon Musk

GOVERNMENT-ECONOMY

THE Left is hysterical after Donald Trump appointed Elon Musk to head up a new US Department of Government Efficiency.

The Tesla billionaire will try to radically shrink the inefficient state, slash red tape, and cut trillions of dollars of wasteful spending.

Never has the intellectual divide between political leaders on each side of the Atlantic been greater.

And nothing better symbolises this chasm separating Keir Starmer’s Labour and Donald Trump’s Republicans than Trump’s choice of hi-tech billionaire Elon Musk to be his efficiency tsar.

Since taking office in July, the Labour Party have been intent on expanding the bloated British state. You just need to look at the details of the eye-watering tax hike of £40billion in the Budget, the huge injection of £22.4billion into the NHS, and the creation of additional quangos.

The contrast couldn’t be any starker. Not only has Mr Trump tasked Musk but also appointed pharma and tech pioneer Vivek Ramaswamy, to head a new Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE). Both have already trumpeted their ambition to wipe $2trillion from the cost of running the US federal government. Word has travelled at lightning pace as Mr Musk declared on his social media channel X that there was no threat to democracy but is to be a direct attack on bureaucracy and America’s big spending state.

Yet, in the UK the Labour Government is set on a course of adding to its spending rather than cutting costs. The British state now spends a mind-boggling 44 per cent – up 5 per cent since the pandemic – of the £2.7trillion annual output of the UK economy.

Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, a self-confessed admirer of the US, has an opportunity as head of the UK Treasury to follow suit and embrace a new world of efficiency. Just imagine the positive impact in the City if she decided to lay credible plans similar in proportion to those announced by Mr Trump.

There is no doubt that Britain is desperately in need of its own Elon Musk-type efficiency tsar. It would certainly change attitudes. If the US Department of Government Efficiency achieves $2trillion of savings without damaging outcomes, then the debate on the depth of public services will change at the next UK election.

Any efficiency here would start by dismantling Labour’s plans for new quangos and organisations which do little more than mimic bureaucracies and other government affiliations which already exist.

These include the new “Border Security Command” which is duplicating work done by the immigration and security services and the National Crime Agency; and “Skills England” which is doubling up on work being done by private sector trade organisations and trades unions.

The list goes on. Labour’s plans for an Industrial Strategy Council and a National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, despite their elaborate and grandiose names, will simply add more red tape and wage bills, increasing the size of the state rather than improving productivity.

Across government, budgets have exploded over the last decade. The NHS which consumed £144billion in 2016 is now projected to cost £277billion in the current fiscal year. Education spending has climbed from £102billion to £146billion over the same period. The nation’s welfare bill has rocketed from £240billion to £379billion. And the Transport budget has gone from £29billion to £66billion. Staggering sums of money all round.

Still, no one can say that state services have improved – in fact, quite the reverse. Anyone seeking to claim “Pension Credit”, following the Chancellor’s brutal assault on the winter fuel allowance for pensioners, can testify for that.

If we had our own Musk to drive efficiency and better productivity in the public sector the red tape and bureaucracy would be peeled away without the unions being indulged. We were shown what could be achieved when, as Prime Minister, Boris Johnson appointed a vaccine tsar (Dame Kate Bingham) who harnessed the efficiency of the private sector to enable the NHS to produce Covid-19 vaccines in record time.

It says everything about Labour’s approach that British pharma giant AstraZeneca, which developed the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine, has just announced it is to plough a record £2.7billion of research and development expenditure into the US rather than the UK.

Only by having the willpower to challenge the inefficiency of the state will there be belief in it being shrunk to manageable levels.

That would create a more agile and productive nation. It is so needed.

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Britain, Government, Politics, Society, United States

Vilifying Trump will backfire

TRUMP’S SECOND PRESIDENCY

IT is truly amazing that with a population of 335million, the United States could not find two better presidential candidates than Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

How dispiriting it must have been to choose between a narcissistic 78-year-old convicted criminal and a deeply unconvincing vice president.

But that was the choice in the run-off for the White House and the voters have spoken. In the final reckoning, they elected Mr Trump as their 47th President – perhaps the most dramatic comeback in the nation’s political history – who romped him with a landslide victory. Both the Senate and House of Representatives will now be controlled by the Republicans.

After he was removed from office in 2020 his supporters attacked the Capitol and he has since been found guilty of multiple felonies.

Mr Trump’s reputation seemed to lie in tatters, yet the majority of Americans have given him a second chance. He has confounded his enemies, who desperately hoped his previous term had been an aberration from which the American people would awake.

Democrats will be feeling lost and bewildered at how their nation could have put such a man in power again. Practically every major institution – from Hollywood to the achingly liberal media – denigrated him.

Yet the voters defied them, showing once again just how far out of touch these powerful elites have become with ordinary people. 

Instead of asking themselves how on earth America could have voted for Trump, they should be asking why the masses didn’t back Ms Harris.

Her campaign was a clinical study in negativity. Preposterously, she described her opponent as a fascist – and by implication tarred his supporters with the same brush. Nor could she separate herself from the unpopular President Joe Biden. His handling of the economy has been hopeless, with inflation and rising prices hammering family budgets.

The Democrats failed to listen to anger at mass immigration. And it is in thrall to the radical race-based progressive policies that alienate so much of Middle America.

Yes, Donald Trump threw his fair share of brickbats and derisory comments, but he also offered optimism and is a known quantity. In his first term, he oversaw impressive economic growth, started no wars, and stood up to Iran and China.

So, in the end, the election wasn’t the tighthead finish all of the pollsters had predicted. It was a resounding and thumping victory, giving Mr Trump huge power to push through his policy agenda. Particularly now that the Republicans have control of both Houses on Capitol Hill.

In many ways, Britain ought to be well positioned after his victory. With a Scottish heritage and investments here, he has far more affection for these islands than Kamala Harris does.

Labour’s student politics will soon put paid to any goodwill. Mr Trump was angered by the party sending staff to campaign for the Democrats, and he will be aware that Labour politicians have hurled gross insults at him. Most notable was David Lammy, now British Foreign Secretary, who, as a backbencher, described Mr Trump as “a woman-hating, neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath”.

In opposition, these remarks were ill-advised. Now he is holding one of the most important Office’ of State, they look indefensible and deeply damaging.

The UK-US “Special Relationship” has always ebbed and flowed, but if Labour doesn’t mature it will wither on the vine.

Sir Keir Starmer’s statist tax rises, failure to properly fund defence, and the headlong dash for Net Zero are already misaligned with US policy. If the PM doesn’t tread carefully, the rift with Mr Trump could damage Britain’s economy and security. The President-Elect has already said that Labour is “too Left”.

The UK and the world need to show restraint and generosity towards the next president – vilifying him out of hand will surely backfire.

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