SIR Keir Starmer may have made a mistake by not attending Davos as a US exit from NATO would leave Europe vulnerable to a Russian invasion, according to a Conservative shadow cabinet member.
Asked if it is an error by the Prime Minister not to attend Davos, Alex Burghart told GB News: “I think it might be. I think really what should be happening at the moment, with everything going on in the world, particularly in the North Atlantic, is that NATO should be meeting, that we need to have everybody in the alliance together to discuss the very real issue around Greenland and the very real threat to the future of the organisation.
“If you end up in a situation where NATO collapses, it’s going to be a really scary world. We’re going to end up in a place where Putin will – America leaves NATO, we’ll probably end up in a situation where Putin will win in Ukraine, and you will then have a very large Russian army with a war economy behind it on the borders of Europe, and that’s that is not a place that we want to be in.”
On the increase in inflation, he said: “Inflation is going up again. The government was telling us it was on its way down now and they fixed the problem. Inflation is going up, and it’s because of the government’s taxes.
“If you look at the underlying figures, one of the things that is pushing inflation up, the food prices and drink prices, and that’s coming out of the hospitality sector. That’s pubs and restaurants and cafes that are being hit by Rachel Reeves’ unnecessary business taxes, big hikes in business tax and hikes in wage taxes.
“This is just, it’s really bad for jobs. It’s really bad for our high streets, really bad for our economy. So the government has choices, it’s just making very bad choices at the moment.”
Asked about President Trump’s comments on the Chagos Islands, he said: “It’s safe to say that our American friends have not been entirely consistent on this point, but it’s very good that they’ve realised, albeit at the 11th hour, that this is a very bad deal. This is probably the worst real estate deal in the history of the world.
“You’ve got a situation where we’re giving away sovereign territory and we’re paying £35 billion. This is awful, bad for our national security, bad for global security. And so I very much hope that there’s something that can be done to end it, for the sake of the West and also the sake of the Chagossians.”
He said a Conservative government would not have approved the new Chinese embassy in London: “We’ve opposed this embassy, and it’s it’s obviously going to become a major spy hub for the Chinese state and we’re concerned that it’s going to compromise the security of the City of London, major, major importance of the economy.
“But the Prime Minister’s made his choice, and he seems to have been driven in making that choice by his desire to be greeted well in Beijing when he turns up there in a few weeks’ time. We think it’s a mistake, but the government’s made its bed and it’s going to have to lie in it.”
