US President Donald Trump’s about-turn on the Chagos Islands – first welcoming the agreement to hand hand sovereignty of the British territory to Mauritius, then turning around and calling it an “act of total weakness” – has been decisive in prompting the British government to shelve the arrangement.
The Chagos Islands, officially known as the British Indian Ocean Territory, are located in the Indian Ocean and Britain has controlled them since the early 19th Century. They are strategically important, chiefly for a joint UK-US military base on the largest island, Diego Garcia.
UK government officials have said they are not entirely abandoning the agreement, but have run out of time to pass legislation before Parliament is prorogued in the coming weeks.
Even so, reports say a new Chagos bill is not expected to feature in the King’s Speech in mid-May.
According to the BBC, it is understood the UK has still not received a formal exchange of letters from the US, legally required for the treaty to be enacted.
The deal would see the UK cede sovereignty of the territory to Mauritius, and pay an average cost of $136m a year to lease back the joint UK-US military base on Diego Garcia.
A government spokesperson said that “ensuring [the] long-term operational security [of the base] is and will continue to be our priority – it is the entire reason for the deal”.
Britain believed the agreement “is the best way to protect the long-term future of the base, but we have always said we would only proceed with the deal if it has US support. We are continuing to engage with the US and Mauritius.”
For the time being, that prospect is off the table.
A former Foreign Office permanent secretary, Lord Simon McDonald, said in an interview that the government had “no other choice” than to shelve the deal.
He is quoted as saying: “The UK had two objectives, one was to comply with international law, the second was to reinforce the relationship with the United States. When the president of the United States is openly hostile, the government has to rethink, so this agreement, this treaty, will go into the deep freeze for the time being.”
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said in a post on X that the time the Labour government took to drop the bill is “another damning indictment of a prime minister, who fought to hand over British sovereign territory and pay £35bn to use a crucial military base which was already ours”.
Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Calum Miller said: “The handling of the Chagos deal has been totally shambolic – from its start under the Tories to this point under Labour.
“But Trump’s fickle approach shows just how unreliable he is.
“We had a strong, stable and effective military partnership with the US. Trump has gravely endangered that. Any deal must provide clarity on the future military partnership with the US and address Chagossian rights and Parliamentary scrutiny of the sums involved.”
According to reports, many Chagossians and their descendants would prefer the UK to retain sovereignty over the islands, in the hope they can one day return.
[Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/9357117365]
Sources: BBC, The Guardian