It was in every sense a classic Kemi Badenoch performance at prime minister’s questions this afternoon. The open goal, identified beforehand by commentators and Conservative strategists alike; the blithe pivot away to a significantly less salient subject; and the meandering narrative, which failed to scathe Keir Starmer on any topic.
As is now convention, the prime minister emerges from his six-question showdown with the Conservative leader strengthened. Badenoch still fails to live up to her self-styled image as a merciless, combative commons operator.
The line of attack Westminster widely expected Badenoch to pursue this afternoon concerned the Chagos Islands deal, and the associated multi-billion pound price tag. The controversy has a tendency to remerge when the domestic news agenda is otherwise quiet. Its latest appearance follows a recent Timesreport, which suggested that the payments by the UK government to Mauritius could effectively double from £9 billion to £18 billion. That report has been denied by the Foreign Office.
Badenoch sought to capitalise on the latest Chagos Islands controversy for the vast majority of her opening spiel. “When Labour negotiates, our country loses”, Badenoch began — a point she made across several sessions at this point. She called the much-discussed deal “an immoral surrender so north London lawyers can boast at their dinner parties.”
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That was the line the Conservative leader wanted to land this session: the prime minister is weak, clueless when it comes to Britain’s national interest and in hock to an international cabal of lawyers and human rights specialists. Starmer is driven by his desire for dinner party invitations in north London, Badenoch alleged; not by a commitment to bettering Britain, at home or overseas.
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The Tory leader addressed all these points before shuffling to her actual question — on the Rosebank oil and gas project. “When Labour negotiates we all lose”, she repeated. “Sometimes they don’t even bother. Why did the Energy Secretary [Ed Miliband] withdraw government lawyers from defending the case against the eco-nutters who want to obstruct Rosebank’s oil and gas fields?”
The prime minister, responding, chose to ignore the last part of Badenoch’s question and engaged at length with her commentary on the Chagos Islands. The Conservative leader’s decision to pivot away, once more, had presented Starmer an opportunity to go on the attack.
He repeated the government line that the UK struck the deal, following a lengthy negotiation conducted by both Conservative and Labour governments, due to national security concerns relating to the legal position of the Diego Garcia base.
In a detailed retort, Starmer declared: “This is a military base that is vital to our national security… a number of years ago the legal certainty of that base was thrown into doubt and let me be clear without legal certainty the base cannot operate in practical terms as it should, that is bad for our national security and it is a gift to our adversaries.”
The prime minister pointed out that the Conservatives had conducted 11 of the 13 rounds of negotiation with Mauritius. “They were right to do so”, he added. “That is why this government has completed that process and we were right to do so. I will set out the details when they are finalised and it will of course be presented to parliament.”
Starmer went on: “If the Leader of the Opposition is properly briefed on the national security implications, when she is asking these questions — which she is perfectly entitled to do — then she knows exactly what I am talking about in terms of national security and legal certainty.
“If, on the other hand, she is not properly briefed on the national security implications, she is not doing her job, she’s not concerned about national security and she’s not fit to be prime minister.”
The comment was allusion to a recent report that suggested Badenoch missed a national security briefing about the Southport killings — as well as a wider consensus that the Conservative leader would be doing far better at PMQs, and generally, if she did the requisite homework. Badenoch tends to organise her six questions according to ideological instinct, with her subjects selected — we can only assume — from her social media feed of anti-Labour invective.
Across the session this afternoon, therefore, Starmer dismissed Badenoch as unserious and unwilling to engage with the details of the debate.
The Conservative leader rejected Starmer’s lengthy response, which went down extremely well among Labour MPs, as “weak and waffly”. “No wonder he needs a voice coach”, she added — in a reference to the claim that the prime minister broke lockdown rules when he met a voice coach during the winter of 2020. It is an allegation Starmer denies.
Badenoch asked again if the energy secretary will refuse to proceed with the Rosebank oil and gas project because of funding from “eco-zealots”.
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Starmer again, initially ignored Badenoch’s question. He hit back: “She didn’t say that she was briefed about the Chagos issue. This is important.
“When she became Leader of the Opposition, I said to her that I would give her a briefing on any national security issue if she asked for it — that’s very important to the way we run our democracy.
“She has not asked for a briefing on the Chagos Islands.”
The prime minister added: “In relation to oil and gas it will be part of our energy supply for many years to come. we have been absolutely clear about that. But we are going through a transition.”
The rest of the frontbench exchange developed along familiar lines, as Badenoch addressed several further topics — including Great British Energy, AstraZeneca and potential job loses — without troubling Starmer.
In the end, looking back on the session in the round, Badenoch and Starmer’s tussle was not nearly as politically significant as the ongoing exchange between Labour and Reform UK.
This episode began with a backbench Labour MP, John Slinger, asking a planted question about Nigel Farage’s recent comments on the NHS. That drew this scripted response from Starmer: “What a contrast with Reform, whose leader has said those who can afford to pay should pay for our healthcare. Under Labour, the NHS will always be free at the point of use.”
Farage, who was called by the speaker this afternoon, provided a response: “There appears to be some panic on that side of the House.”
Once the shouting and barracking from Labour MPs quietened, the Reform leader stitched the Chagos Islands topic together with winter pressures and controversial cuts to the fuel allowance.
Farage asked: “What do I say to 25,000 constituents in Clacton, including 99-year-old Jim O’Dwyer, who flew a full set of missions on Lancaster bombers as a tail-end Charlie, as they’re losing winter fuel allowance, feeling the pinch, while at the same time they’re willing to give away a military base and pay £18 billion for the privilege of doing so?”
Starmer’s answer was effective: “He talks of panic, the only panic is people using the NHS who know that under his policy he wants to charge them for using the NHS.
“What he should say to the people of Clacton — when he finally finds Clacton — is that they should vote Labour because we are stabilising the economy.”
Farage will not mind the drama and Labour’s relentless chuntering — it all plays into his narrative of an establishment backlash to Reform’s rise. Indeed, his pointed question — and Labour’s heightened focus on Reform — strengthens his pitch that he is the “real” leader of the opposition.
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Ed Miliband: ‘The mission of this government is to take back control’
Lunchtime soundbite
‘I have from the last few weeks two images fixed in my mind. The first is the image of Emily Damari reunited with her mother, which I found extremely moving.
The second was the image of thousands of Palestinians walking, literally walking through the rubble, to try to find their homes and their communities in Gaza.
They must be allowed home. They must be allowed to rebuild, and we should be with them in that rebuild, on the way to a two state solution.’
— Keir Starmer responds to a question from Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey about Trump’s Gaza plan.
Now try this…
‘Hunt: Starmer should not retaliate if Trump hits UK with trade tariffs’
Via The Guardian.
‘Trump’s Gaza plan will be seen as flying in face of international law’
BBC News’ Tom Bateman writes.
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