Adam Holloway

Adam Holloway was MP for Gravesham, in Kent, from 2005 to 2024

Friday

Adam Holloway

Starmer is making life impossible for the Chagos Islanders

Five of them came aboard our sailing boat at 8 a.m. on Saturday. Naval and Royal Marine personnel rebranded as police officers, immigration and customs officials, and, for some reason, a French-speaking fisheries protection officer. Other Royal Marines stayed on their assault boat. Whilst individually perfectly pleasant, they were all there to make sure life did not become too comfortable for the six Chagos Islanders who have returned to their ancestral home. Agents of the British state, climbing over our vessel, poking into crates, writing on clipboards – an act of sheer malicious spite by Keir Starmer's government, which hasn't managed to stop a single boat closer to home. Our trip was a humanitarian resupply run.

Wednesday

Adam Holloway

Why I helped invade the Chagos Islands

Peros Banhos, Chagos Islands On Monday at 08.52 local time, 02.52 GMT, I waded ashore to the Chagos archipelago alongside four islanders who had come to establish a permanent settlement – which they hope will make it impossible for the Starmer government to hand the territory to Mauritius.  We had managed to come this far in absolute secrecy. We worried that our passage to the Chagos Islands might be interrupted by either a British patrol boat or even a Chinese submarine. So, we bought a boat in Thailand and provisioned it in Sri Lanka. Then we made the five-day ocean passage from the port of Galle in Sri Lanka to the northernmost islands of the Chagos archipelago.

Wednesday

Adam Holloway

Why I left the Conservatives – and joined Reform

There comes a moment for many soldiers – and most politicians – when you realise the battle you think you're fighting isn’t the one your leaders are waging. That moment came for me watching Kemi Badenoch tell Sky News's Trevor Phillips there are real differences between Reform UK and the Conservatives. She was right. The difference is the Reform leadership – voters grasp the scale of our national peril and back a party serious about addressing it. I didn’t leave the Conservative party, it left me Many in Britain feel we may already have passed the point of no return. Our cities grow less cohesive, the country effectively bankrupt. For over a year, Conservative colleagues have insisted Reform was just a noisy protest vehicle.

Thursday

Adam Holloway

What I’ve learned from five months sleeping on the streets

Over the years, I have spent around five months sleeping rough on the streets of London, Birmingham and New York, making undercover TV programmes. Matthew, who works in my Westminster office, spent last summer involuntarily homeless after he was cheated by his business partner. I suspect we are the only people within the Palace of Westminster who have been through the unpleasant experience of sleeping rough, and we both have come to the same conclusion. Street homelessness (as opposed to the homelessness of temporary accommodation) is, for the most part, a symptom or consequence of a different problem: addiction to drink or drugs, or mental illness. If politicians want to deal with it, they must accept this. Homelessness is a popular subject in SW1.

Wednesday

Adam Holloway

We can’t just base our refugee policy on what makes us feel better

People across Britain wept when we saw the picture of little Aylan Kurdi's body on a Turkish beach. We later heard of his brother and mother dying  - and his family's story of fleeing from Islamic State, and of their year in Turkey before boarding a smugglers' deflating dingy. Many scream out in empathy that something must be done, that we must assimilate more refugees to help the desperate and stop the dying. I completely agree with the need for real action to help them - but l also think the Prime Minister completely right when he says that receiving ever more people is not the answer.

Wednesday

Adam Holloway

To bring peace to the Afghans, talk to the Taleban

Adam Holloway says that Britain’s strategy in Afghanistan is misconceived. Nato’s military presence should be reduced and the battle for hearts and minds fought more imaginatively They do not like the F-word in Whitehall, but failure stares us in the face in southern Afghanistan. For three years we have deluded ourselves that we can defeat the insurgency in the Pashtun tribal belt through our much talked-about plan for a ‘comprehensive approach’ — security, governance and development. But in Helmand province and across the Pashtun lands, violence is greatly increased, governance is distinctly patchy and development is barely noticeable. The government tells us that we are there to stop it becoming a failed state in which our enemies can regroup.