I was at the Equator, on an Atoll in the centre of the Indian Ocean, which is a couple of hundred miles from the British Military base, Diego Garcia. It’s when Putin, several years ago, called Britain a second rate power. Before they proved this past month Russia is a fifth rate one.
But it is the British base at Diego Garcia equidistant from Singapore and Somalia that holds a clue to Britain’s future and the world we want.
Is she a second rate power at Putin claims? Is this tiny island nation with bases thousands of miles away in a foreign ocean trying to punch above her weight? Is Britain with a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, representing a mere 1% of the world’s population, irrelevant – despite having a veto power over all resolutions by the UN?
Is this G7 member, the fifth largest economy in the world, weaker outside the EU as Obama claimed? The UK Foreign Secretary visited India this past week. She could not pressure them to overtly change any stance on Russia.
I need a strong Britain. An economically strong and politically strong Britain, because I am British and like British values, and fear a world where those values are not held up. I fear a world where the values of the Chinese or Russians are the major voices.
That base at Diego Garcia is a joint base with the Americans as part of the British Indian Ocean Territories. It is not a remote island harking to yesteryear, but in fact a presence that protects free trade sea routes and a base from which to project power into the Indian Ocean to the Arabian sea to the coast off Western Africa – not Britain alone, but alongside America.
What business is any of this of ours? Of Britains? Because in a landscape of competing national interests, we need to fight and stake and keep our claim, for the values which we first encourage upon the world, or at worst, impose. But we’ve seen their alternative visions from China to Russia to Syria, and I prefer our way.
