UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced on Thursday, May 22, that he had signed an agreement to return the remote Chagos Islands to Mauritius in return for continued use of a key military base. “A few moments ago, I signed a deal to secure the joint UK-US base on Diego Garcia,” Starmer said, after a high court judge ruled the agreement could go ahead.
Earlier, a British court had paved the way for the government deal on returning the remote islands to Mauritius, lifting a temporary ban that had forced an 11th-hour halt to an accord being signed. The agreement will see Britain give the Indian Ocean archipelago back to its former colony and pay to lease a key US-UK military base on Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands.
Labour Prime Minister Starmer had been due to conclude the agreement earlier on Thursday, in a virtual signing ceremony together with Mauritian representatives. However, in a last-minute pre-dawn court hearing, two Chagossian women won a temporary injunction from London’s High Court on the deal’s progress. This was an embarrassing turn of events for Starmer, whose government has faced huge criticism over the plan.
The injunction lifted at the last minute
After a hearing at 10:30 am local time, Judge Martin Chamberlain lifted the injunction, saying there was a “very strong case” that the UK national interest and public interest would be “prejudiced” by extending the ban. He said any further challenges would have to be heard by the Court of Appeal.
A government spokesman said: “We welcome the judge’s ruling today.” “The deal is the right thing to protect the British people and our national security,” a government spokesperson had told Agence France-Presse (AFP) ahead of the ruling.
The opposition Conservatives, however, described the government’s Chagos Island deal as a “sellout for British interests.” “You’re seeing British sovereign territory being given away to an ally of China, and billions of pounds of British taxpayers’ money being spent for the privilege,” said senior Tory politician Robert Jenrick. “This was always a bad deal,” he added.
Earlier, the two Chagossian women, Bernadette Dugasse and Bertrice Pompe, had applied for the injunction, after a leaked newspaper report, published late on Wednesday, indicated that the government planned to unveil the deal. As around 50 protesters gathered outside the court, the two women’s lawyer, Philip Rule, alleged the government was acting “unlawfully” and argued there was “significant risk” that Thursday could have been the court’s last opportunity to hear the case.
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Starmer, meanwhile, has said that international legal rulings have put Britain’s ownership of the Chagos in doubt. Britain kept control of the Chagos Islands after Mauritius gained independence in the 1960s, though it evicted thousands of Chagos islanders, who have since mounted a series of legal claims for compensation in British courts. In 2019, the International Court of Justice recommended that Britain hand the archipelago to Mauritius after decades of legal battles.
Delayed negotiations
Negotiations on handing the islands to Mauritius began in 2022 under the previous Conservative government, and resumed after Starmer’s Labour Party was elected in July. A draft agreement was struck in October, but was delayed by a change of government in Mauritius and reported quarrels over how much the UK should pay to lease the base on Diego Garcia.
The UK also paused to consult the United States after the change of government in Washington. President Donald Trump’s administration gave its approval. Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam had said his country would pursue its fight for full sovereignty over the islands if Washington refused to support the return.
Starmer also said that only a deal with Mauritius could guarantee that the military base remains functional. The base is leased to the US and has become one of its key military facilities in the Asia-Pacific region, including being used as a hub for long-range bombers and ships during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The deal would give Britain a 99-year lease for the base, with the option to extend.
The UK government has not said how much the lease will cost, but has not denied reports that it would be £90 million ($111 million) a year.
