Keir Starmer is facing mounting pressure to hit the pause on the government’s recent deal to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, after UN human rights experts blasted the agreement for ignoring the voices and rights of the Chagossian people.
The deal, struck just last month after years of talks, transfers sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius but allows the UK to lease back the military base on Diego Garcia — the largest island in the group — for at least 99 years. While the government insists the agreement is a win for diplomacy and defence, it’s now under serious scrutiny.
The UN panel, appointed by the Human Rights Council, has raised alarm bells over what they say is a serious failure to respect the rights of the Chagossians. They said the continued presence of the military base and the ongoing ban on Chagossians returning to Diego Garcia clash directly with their basic human rights, reported the Express.
The Chagossians were forced off their homeland between 1965 and 1973 to make way for the joint UK-US base. Since then, they’ve been denied the right to go back. And despite the UK setting up a £40 million trust fund supposedly for the benefit of the Chagossian community as part of the agreement, the UN doesn’t think it cuts it.
They said the fund falls short of being an “effective remedy” and also slammed the lack of real consultation with Chagossian people before the deal was signed. “We are gravely concerned about the lack of meaningful participation of Chagossians in processes that have led to the agreement,” the experts said.
In a strongly worded call to action, the UN panel urged the UK to suspend the agreement altogether and start fresh with new negotiations. “In light of these significant concerns, we call for the ratification of the agreement to be suspended and for a new agreement to be negotiated that fully guarantees the rights of the Chagossian people to return to all islands of the Chagos Archipelago, including Diego Garcia,” they said.
Priti Patel, the Conservative shadow foreign secretary, didn’t mince her words either. She accused the government of turning its back on the very people it claims to support and urged them to scrap the deal. “We have been warning from the start that this deal is bad for British taxpayers and bad for the Chagossian people,” she said. “Labour has completely ignored this community from the get-go and failed to consult with them at every step of the way.”
She’s now introduced a Bill in Parliament aimed at blocking the agreement and forcing the government to properly engage with the community before any further action is taken.
The deal follows a 2019 advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice, which said the UK should return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. Alongside the £40 million trust fund, the UK has agreed to pay at least £120 million a year over the next 99 years to lease Diego Garcia — a commitment totalling at least £13 billion. There are also rules in place preventing any development on the rest of the archipelago without the UK’s say-so, something the government claims will prevent other countries like China from trying to muscle in.
But with international criticism growing and domestic opposition heating up, it looks like the Prime Minister may be forced to rethink a deal that’s already proving deeply divisive.
