Sir Mel Stride has thrown his support behind Donald Trump over his stance on the UK’s Chagos deal, declaring he is “right” to have called it an “act of great stupidity”.

Speaking to GB News, the Shadow Chancellor agreed with the US President that Europe must “step up to the plate” in our defence funding.

Asked by host Stephen Dixon if he believes Mr Trump’s decision to drop UK tariffs over Greenland is a “win” for Sir Keir, Sir Mel said: “I don’t think it’s a win for the Prime Minister, but was I surprised in a sense, because we live in a very volatile age now with Donald Trump, where he can shift around from one position to the next very quickly.

“But what I think we have learned once again is that on this issue, the threat of tariffs in relation to Greenland, it was, I think, when Europe kind of got together and we with one voice said that there would be retaliatory action in the event that America went down that road. So I do think one of the things that tells us is that we can’t constantly be reeling from President Trump.”

He added: “We have to sort of put some lines in the sand here, and when that is done, history tells us that it is often the case that Donald Trump moves his position. And I think that’s part of the story that you’ve seen here.”

Pressed on whether he believes that the UK and US still have their “special relationship”, the Shadow Chancellor responded: “I think this is just another inflection point on a broader change that has been going on for some time since President Trump came into office.

“And that is a decoupling of America from European security, a move away from the international world order and the international institutions that have underpinned much of the stability that we’ve seen since the Second World War.

“So it’s part of a broader shift. The big question is, how do we respond to that? And I think that is where standing up for our own defence is going to become increasingly important.

“We have got to work out how we have an economy that’s able to spend a lot more on defence so that we can invest in our security and more broadly across Europe, stand on our own two feet in that regard.”

Defending Donald Trump’s bid to get Europe to “step up to the plate” on defence, Sir Mel argued: “I don’t think one should say that everything President Trump has been suggesting is wrong, far from it.

“He’s been very right about the failure over many years of Europe to step up to the plate when it has come to funding defence.

“And how do we do that? Well, it comes down to the economy. First and foremost, we need deep thinking around how we get into a situation where we can have a much more rapidly growing economy.

“And that means getting on top of spending, particularly welfare spending, getting taxes down, getting growth going, and various other reforms we need to bring through.”

He continued: “And the Conservative Party is doing the deep thinking that is required to come up with the answers there.

“In the more short term, we have said that we think the Government absolutely should commit to three per cent of GDP funding by the end of this Parliament, but we recognise that beyond that, we are going to have to go further.

“And we will, of course, have a lot to say about that as we approach the next general election and we present our entire plan as to how we are going to have a much more rapidly growing economy that is going to meet this challenge and many others that our country faces.”

Asked for his verdict on Mr Trump’s intervention on the UK’s Chagos deal, Sir Mel threw his support behind the US President’s change of stance.

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He said: “I think on that he is right. Of course, he did change his position, he had a different position a little while ago, but he’s right in his current position. It is madness that we’re doing this, it’s coming with a huge price tag of £35billion.

“As to whether the Government U-turns, well, we’ve had 13 different U-turns so far from this Government, so they’re very well versed in U-turning. But we’ll have to wait and see.

“But it is completely the wrong decision, particularly in the context of what we’re discussing at the moment, which is the security of our country.

“It is madness to be paying Mauritius this vast amount of money in order to lease back these islands, that this country has owned for a very considerable period of time.”

Asked whether he backs a social media ban on under-16s, Sir Mel told GB News: “I feel very strongly, as I know Kemi does on social media. We think that elements of it should be banned for those who are children under the age of 16.

“And there’s very good reason for that, because there’s already a wealth of evidence as to the harms of social media.

“Our young people are spending about three hours a day on average on social media. About 70 per cent of those children viewing it are viewing live violence on social media.”

He added: “So this is having a real impact on young people, and it does need to be banned. What we saw in the Lords was an amendment that went through to a piece of legislation the Government is taking through at the moment that would bring that into effect.

“It’s likely the Government’s going to overturn that, and then consult on the whole issue. But we believe that we should be acting now and that there’s really no time to be lost.”

Criticising the Government’s approach to British farmers with their inheritance tax changes, Sir Mel concluded: “The approach this Government has taken to farming has been entirely ruinous.

“So the changes they made, something called agricultural property relief, for example, which means that when you pass your farm down from one generation to another, this Labour Government has been saying that a huge inheritance tax bill should be payable, and that has already affected many farmers who’ve taken decisions on the basis of that situation.

“So the fact that the Government has partially U-turned on that will come as cold comfort to many. We need to be looking at things like food security, we need to be getting the cost pressures on farmers down. So that means National Insurance or on employing people, for example, which does affect farmers.

“And we need to be getting inflation down and you get inflation down, not by borrowing vast amounts of money and spending vast amounts of money, which is what this Government is doing.

“And if you can get inflation down, you can get a lot of those cost pressures and price pressures on farmers down, too.”