Certain social media activity from and about Saint Helena is doing no one any credit. When these things are put up over here, then no one asks the local council, nor is central government funding for local services significantly increased.
Just as the main point about the Chagos Islands is that no one has asked the Chagossians, and in fact the Government is transparently lying about having done so, so the main point about Saint Helena is that Stephen Doughty ignored Jeremy Corbyn's question, "Will he guarantee that Saint Helena is not going to become an offshore base for Britain to evade its international human rights obligations by simply sending large numbers of refugees there in the future?" Doughty pretended that Corbyn has asked something else entirely, having already failed to deny to Sir Edward Leigh that refugees landing in Britain might also be sent there.
On 7 October, David Lammy confirmed to Corbyn that the Chagossians would never be able to go back to Diego Garcia even as visitors, because it was to be a foreign power's military base at British expense for at least 140 years. Shameful. Utterly shameful. And historically and strategically illiterate. 140 years ago was 1884. The British Empire and the American Republic were no allies then. There is no reason to assume any alliance between the United States and the United Kingdom in 2164. Yet, say it again, we are to pay for their base.
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