It’s bad enough having an international lawyer instead of a Prime Minister ss head of the government. Even worse when we have an inept one.
There are no legal uncertainties about the Chagos. The UK paid for them when Mauritius became independent. They were never owned by an independent Mauritius, They are UK territory.
The ICJ has no jurisdiction over the UK and the Chagos. When we signed up to the Court we ruled out the court taking cases about the Uk and the Commonwealth. Worrying about a possible loss of an ICJ case is therefore a nonsense.
The PM told the House there are security reasons to change ownership of the base. For all these years of UK ownership there have been no security problems. If Mauritius takes over what is to stop them occupying the other islands in ways which could impede free use of the base? As a non nuclear country might they want to impose rules over nuclear powered and armed vessels? What would stop them seeking to jack up the terms for the lease at a later date? As a friend of China what information might they pass on that had learned as freeholder of a major US naval base.
Priti Patel and Nigel Farage made the right points yesterday in the Commons ignoring Nigel’s muddle over which Court it is that Starmer worries about. The government must back down . We cannot afford the cost and are stupid to give away a freehold we legally own.The Minister was a disgrace, refusing to answer how much they have offered, what the main terms of the lease are, or how there are any security problems with our ownership.
February 6, 2025
The Chagos are this weeks premier farce. Should our so called government wish to virtue signal, they could right the wrong of expelling the Chargosians and return them to the archipeligo. The only justifiable expulsions are that of members of the FCO who wrote the script. Two tier teflon Starmer made himself look an idiot on this topic at PMQs yesterday. A more irrelevant bunch of chancers it would be hard to find.
February 6, 2025
Offer them return with a settlement package. I wager they won’t go.
February 6, 2025
@Michelle – with respect, what’s that got to do with the PM giving away something we own(the UK Taxpayer), Mauritius has never owned and is not even in close proximity at 2,000 km distance, there are many nations nearer. Then once he has given the Chagos islands away he wants to pay Mauritius with taxpayer money for having them.
The only profit is for what is said to be his long standing best pal who stands as legal council for Mauritius.
What we call and with reasonable assumptions the Chagos Islanders are not indigenous to the Islands they are just people that the UK dragged there to work. There is no such thing as an indigenous Chagos islanders. The English are the only settlers, then only in passing
February 6, 2025
My point is they are another set of people here banging the drum of how they have been wronged, wrenched from the island, so the story goes.
My reply was to agricola mentioning righting the wrongs of their expulsion, and nothing to do with the other aspects in this instance. Following on, or picking up a point in another’s comment.
February 7, 2025
Ian, weren’t the African people dragged there to work by the French to work on coconut plantations? 1715 to 1810 the Chagos Islands were part of France’s Indian Ocean possessions, administered through Isle de France – another French colony (renamed Mauritius). WIKI Under the Treaty of Paris (1814), France ceded the Isle de France and the Chagos Islands to the UK!
“In November 2022, the UK government launched a new British nationality route for individuals of Chagossian descent. It allows them to become British citizens free of charge, and to build their future in the UK should they wish to.” Gov.uk
The controversy was that the British resettled 2000 Chagossians to Mauritus after claiming the island was unpopulated, to allow the Americans to establish a military base on Diego Garcia.
Something really stinks about all this.
February 6, 2025
Forbes news has posted a video of John Kennedy (R Louisiana) pointing out the stupidity and danger of this idea. He says Rubio is against it and probably Trump too. How Starmer decides will define UK relations with the USA for good or bad.
February 6, 2025
Good morning.
What has happened is the most bizarre, and most worrying thing I have ever seen a government do. We have not only just given land that is ours by right to another country but, actually paid for it to take it off us. On top of that, we have agreed to lease them back off them, only for the use of another country (USA) to use.
Question. Would any member of the government do that with any of their homes ? Would they give me their homes and pay me for the privilege, only to lease it back off me and let someone else live their ? Somehow I very much doubt it. So why do they think this is something they can do with property that is NOT theirs ? This belongs to the Crown and the State.
As I said. Very bizarre and worrying.
February 6, 2025
Mark it is very worrying. Next will be the Falklands and then Gibraltar . This bunch of chances are sucking up to our enemies in plain sight
Someone must be receiving a large brown envelope.
February 6, 2025
Yeah. Same too with the Rwanda plan. All that money, and for what ? Very suspicious 😉
February 6, 2025
Rwanda helping (or by proxy) the ‘M23 Armed Group invade the Democratic Republic of Congo only last week ….nice people
February 6, 2025
@Ian Wraggg +1
Very large, its the only thing that can be suggested
February 6, 2025
@Mark B – bizarre, yes. But surely in keeping with this UK wrecking at any cost PM. A devoted Marxist ideologue and his team that have no respect for the UK or its People. They will fight the country into oblivion before standing up and doing what is right and correct
February 6, 2025
Given Starmer’s evident enthusiasm for resetting relationships, why do we not have a re-set with Mautitius?
Mauritius (and the world) should be told that any claim it has to the Chagos Islands is disavowed, recalling that it arises only because of a convention that upon decolonization, territories should not be split, rather retain any imperial combination.
It is hard to dismiss the notion that Starmer and Lammy have been duped by Foreign Office operatives wedded to their own notions and too in thrall to others’ expectations.
February 6, 2025
This is absolutely the case as may be seen from the referenced debate at the time of announcement that our Government made at the time of the legal report.
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2019-07-03/debates/3A6C6A98-82CA-4D65-BDF9-576F216F892A/ChagosIslandsUNGeneralAssemblyResolution
February 6, 2025
I totally agree Mauritius never owned the Chagos Islands. They have as much claim to the Chagos Islands as India or Iceland. Not only does this make us look like a dithering and uncertain country on the world stage (and an unreliable security partner to the US) it opens up Argentina’s bogus claims to the Falkland Islands again too.
Argentine has no claim to those islands either. They never even set foot on the Falkland Islands let alone ever settled there or ever made a legal claim to them in their entire history. Argentina has as much claim to the Falkland Islands as India or Iceland too but it is hard to sustain that justification when you bend over Chagos Islands. Our PM is an idiot.
February 6, 2025
Yes, our PM is an idiot … but don’t forget that before the General Election this issue was being discussed by the Not-a-Conservative-Party.
So it’s the Foreign Office Mandarins who are pushing it and they will have drafted the Brief which Two-Tier referred to during PMQs yesterday. They are not working in OUR interests and should be sacked.
February 6, 2025
They can’t be this stupid. It’s an unnecessary, deliberately anti-British action to pay a country to take this valuable territory from us. This must be a case of “follow the money”. Who within our government, its associates and supporters gains money here?
The next administration in the UK should order a police/fraud office investigation into what went on, and prosecute any wrongdoers.
February 6, 2025
Exactly let us hope Trump will sort this appalling Starmer/Lammy mess out before any more serious damage is done.
February 6, 2025
Yes, given this arrangement comes from socialist dogma, Trump needs to come in and tell Starmer that the UK will be treated like the EU for tariffs if we give up ownership, as Farage hinted yesterday. I see no other force capable of changing Starmer/Lammy’s plan.
The fact that Starmer puts his socialist ideas above common-sense and logic is a warning.
February 6, 2025
Peter,
The antidote to leftist stupidity is sensible strong leadership. At this time, in the Western world, only Trump can provide this. Sadly, Starmer is probably more focused on pursuing his determined agenda to destroy the country as a democratic nation than bowing to any threats of economic Armageddon for the UK. Do not, however, underestimate Trump, with his pro-British mindset, to introduce the unexpected to reverse this situation.
February 6, 2025
The Americans are already there. If the issue is not resolved I could imagine them laying claim to the place and refusing to pay Mauritius or anybody else. Who would remove them?
February 6, 2025
@Peter – lets hope so there is not a UK Taxpayer that wouldn’t support that. The USA are the sitting tenants and as such it could be reasoned they have more right to the Islands than all others and most certainly Mauritius.
February 6, 2025
This latest saga show very clearly that we do not have a UK government looking after our interests, not when international issues always take priority.
Yet Chagos is just one of an ever increasing list of crimes against the British people. On top of netzero, immigration and taxation.
Where Trump has appointed positive people who are even now working towards implementing positive change, every single UK minister is working against us to show how destructive they can be.
If ever a government could be described as rogue, it is this one.
February 6, 2025
You don’t actually have a government at all in the conventional sense.
Merely a management group which is dedicated to pleasing Big Money interests.
February 6, 2025
B,
That could describe most governments.
The big difference is that previous ones have at least attempted/pretended to placate the voting public when they were pushing too far.
The current one does not seem to care. ‘Carry On Regardless’ is their motto.
February 6, 2025
BH: As I read your contribution, could not agree more with your ‘rogue’ description because no matter what this shower intend, that’s what comes across increasingly. The lack of transparency, authoritarianism, non-answers to legitimate questions, the almost venomous announcements at times, their stock phrases including the oft repeated one of their not being willing to give an ongoing commentary on this, that and the other. The Chagos issue is beyond comprehension; what is it that our leader is unable to tell us. The cancellation of May elections is provocative but not surprising and as for the proposed ‘phobia’ legislation, this is very concerning and will they actually be able to bypass Parliament on that ?
February 7, 2025
Diane – yes the way this government operates is offensive and worrying.
It strikes me that this is the first UK government to work openly against the people of this country, and for that they will eventually be crucified.
February 6, 2025
Many people including in the business and financial world were far too sanguine about the prospects of a Labour govt. Labour govts always do incalculable long term damage, which we live with and have to resolve over decades after they’ve left office. The Blair-brown govt gave us: devolution and Scottish separatism; the sale of the gold; the debt fuelled boom and bust and ill-conceived bank bailout; the deliberate opening of the sluice gates to mass immigration to “rub the right’s nose in diversity”; 3 federalising EU treaties with no referenda; a massive expansion of the size and scope of the state with a proliferation of quangos. Probably much more. Labour govts of the past took the Country close to communism with mass nationalisation, takeover by militant unions and crippling tax rises. This one on many levels is proving no better.
We can have a competition on the right for votes for the time being, but at the next election it’s essential there is a combined plan to get rid of Labour.
February 6, 2025
Agreed.
Not just labour, we really have to continue the decimation of the Tories while removing labour, greens and libdems from the political landscape. They have all contributed to the mess we are in.
February 6, 2025
Given the strategic location of the Chagos and the shared military base, Starmer and Lammy should U turn on this issue. The other solution might be to signal to Trump that the island is up for sale and invite an “offer in the region of” Are there any rare earth ores on Chagos? If so, that should put the price up
February 6, 2025
We really do need to establish who actually benefits from the UK paying a foreign country £billions to take over strategic islands we legitimately own?
Under what logic does a strategic UK/USA military base become more secure by removing Britain’s ownership of it? Worse still, the land is being gifting it to a none NATO country that never governed it, or ever sought to claim ownership of it, along with an £18billion bribe for their trouble.
Prior to the grifters, sorry I mean lawyers, (silly mistake, sorry) introducing a vexatious case before the ICJ, the only people who felt aggrieved were the Chagosian residents displaced and living in exile.
I ask again who is benefitting from this so called security charade?
It certainly is not the military or the British tax payers.
February 6, 2025
Get used to it. There’s a big giveaway to the EU about to happen too.
February 6, 2025
The Conservatives need to find a way to show that this is David Lammy’s Foreign Office policy and that they didn’t set this in train.
That way we can see that it is a Labour party farce. Otherwise it is just another instance of they’re all the same and the civil service is on on it.
A poor and unnecessary deal.
Lands hard won in the past are owned by the victors.
Reply David Cameron as Foreign Sec vetoed this officials plan. Lammy encouraged it.
February 6, 2025
Thank you Sir John – is that on record somewhere?
February 6, 2025
I’m not sure why anyone is surprised.
Labour’s whole ethos is about ‘righting the wrongs’ of the Empire as seen through their eyes. They’ve had decades of control through important institutions such as education in which to do this. Those running the show now are the cream of the crop of this particularly destructive view of our nation and people.
There’s no balance, and often their assertions of the wrongs we’ve done are inaccurate and have no context of time and comparison to other Empires or nations and their people.
We now have a man in charge who threw himself to his knees immediately over an incident with a criminal in the US, just because……….
Regarding the Chagos Islands, such things as paying to lease, possible security threats and more besides, none of this means a damn thing and I doubt it has even been looked at properly. What research has been done would likely have been done by those with exactly the same view as Starmer & Co.
This is all about ‘taking the knee’ as with the slavery nonsense and I fear much more to come.
February 6, 2025
Isn’t the reason for this Chagos manoeuvre because the USA is not happy that an important military base is on disputed territory, and the proposed lease is an attempt to find certainty?
Reply. No. The US wants the UK to keep it. Our sovereignty is not in doubt. It is also well protected by the naval base.
February 6, 2025
Thanks for the reply. If what you say is correct – and I don’t doubt it – then I’m at a loss to understand the handing over of ownership.
February 6, 2025
The stupidly of Labour as a whole and the Chagos in particular is simply bewildering, I find it unbelievable so much so I can only conclude there is corruption going on here yet to be uncovered.
This is a future war in the making just as Ukraine’s constant mumbling about joining NATO led to Russia’s invasion, can not Starmer see there is no need to fix something which isn’t broken.
It’s fine as it is, leave well alone
February 6, 2025
If you want another example of the over-extension of human rights and international “law”, take a look at the EU’s move to create a tribunal to prosecute Russia. They can’t use the ICC because its remit doesn’t include “aggression”, which is what they want to prosecute Russia for. So they are creating a tribunal that will prosecute countries for this offence.
There are contradictory views on whether Russia was the initial aggressor in the Ukraine conflict. It doesn’t bode well that partisans from one side of the argument can set themselves up as a court, to prosecute the other side. If we all did that, what a mess things would be. Meanwhile who wants the EU as the arbiter of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour by nations? Their own record is pretty damning.
See the European conservative: https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/brussels-plans-special-tribunal-to-prosecute-russia-for-ukraine-war/
February 6, 2025
This is by far the most stupid ill-conceived irrational deal ever done by a UK government. Whichever way you look at it. Even more strange is the the negotiations started (before they was stopped by Lord Cameron) under a Conservative government, presumably influenced by “patriotic” Foreign Office people, whose job it is to represent the interests of foreigners.
February 6, 2025
There is no justification for transferring Sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius and an 8 yr old child would understand that paying £billions to lease-back an island which you already own is moronic-level stupidity.
So, since Two-Tier isn’t moronically stupid, he has another reason for doing it. I suspect he fancies himself as the new head of the ICJ (or similar) when he gets kicked out of No.10 and is effectively applying for the position in advance.
I hope Trump vetoes it – and humiliates Two-Tier in the process.
February 6, 2025
In the justification for this deal issued by the government it listed various spurious risks for damage to UK’s reputation if it didn’t go ahead, but also that if it didn’t no UK judge would be appointed to sit on the ICJ – obviously the Attorney General Lord Hermer is worried he won’t have a nice retirement job for himself lined up in future sitting alongside the current judges from Uganda, Somalia, China, South Africa and assorted other places with exemplary legal records.
Also I believe the payments are classified as partly “reparations” – that will open up a Pandora’s box of claims on UK taxpayers money from around the world.
February 6, 2025
Starmer willing to pay Billions to hand over the Chagos. But fills the alleged ‘£22 billion black hole’ by one twentieth by removing the winter fuel allowance for pensioners. What a totally incompetent/hateful anti-British n’er do well he is.
February 6, 2025
‘As a friend of China what information might they pass on that had learned as freeholder of a major US naval base’. Am I the only one who thinks the author of these words needs a proof reader?
February 6, 2025
Sir John
As you say there is no legal case. The only thing that seems to have arisen is the well paid legal team for the other-side are said to be long term and good pals of the PM
February 6, 2025
Sir John
As has been suggested by many the UK/US base will have to pay a fortune for something is theirs, while the Mauritius Government leases off the other islands and gives access to their pals in China.
You would have to conclude this PM wants to destroy the UK and its security at every level. What we can be 100% clear about he has not got a bone in his body that supports the UK, its People, its wealth or its security
February 6, 2025
Keir Starmer acts as if he is leader of the Opposition: opposed to whatever is good for the UK, and in favour of anything harmful against us.
February 6, 2025
The PM does not have the authority to give away UK territory. He is only elected on a temporary basis (maximum 5 years) to make our laws and financial decisions. The permanent giving away of territory must be decided by the country and hence through a referendum and not by an individual elected for a short time by 20% of the electorate.
Just as the PM had no authority to make a 100 year pact with Ukraine.
February 6, 2025
The 100yrs with Ukraine is ridiculous. Why should we pay to maintain a highly dubious and likely corrupt regime (Zelensky admits to “losing” $1bn) in a country most of us couldn’t even point to on a map, 3 years ago.
The Ukranian leak of the purported Trump plan gets Europe to pay for the reconstruction and ongoing security. With this 100yr solidarity promise, that will include us. Payments to Ukraine and the largely foreign contractors doing the work.
February 6, 2025
The grift goes on. Now Lammy’s gone to Kiev with another £55m of taxpayers’ money to hand over to a regime struggling with a war it can’t win. How the Countess of Chester hospital could have used that money!
February 6, 2025
Wanderer:
You’ve explained why our PM signed this 100 year pack with Ukraine.
February 6, 2025
Well said Sir
February 6, 2025
Has this government actually given notice to the USA to vacate the island ….because Mauritius nee China will
Why are we pissing off our closest friend
February 6, 2025
This black hole is now £122 bn ? Is it still the Tories’ fault ?
Can’t King Charles III intervene now ?
February 6, 2025
Dear Mr. Redwood,
I must admit to being surprised at your description of the First Lord of the Treasury as inept. May I say, you are usually a good deal more circumspect in your choice or words. However, I agree with you. Our inept Prime Minister and his disgrace of a Minister join a long and undistinguished list of inept and disgraceful servants of the Nation.
When a Minister of State pointedly refuses to provide sensible answers to urgent questions from MP’s, at what point does the Speaker intervene or does he just allow Ministers to waffle on regardless? How are opposition MP’s to hold Ministers and the Government to account if serious questions are met continually with evasion and obfuscation?
Not a very constructive contribution from me today I agree but, Good Lord, just how bad can these imbeciles who rule over us get? I fervently hope that voters are beginning to see through this current crop of shysters for the inept, disgraceful and empty vessels that they are.
February 6, 2025
The attempt to give away the Chagos Islands is a disgrace. Both Starmer and Lammy should be sacked, arrested and tried for treason. They should also be charged for disrespecting the USA and sucking up to the EU!
Kemi and Nigel should make clear that neither will honour this deal. Both should ask President Trump to speak to Starmer and say No.
How stupid are both the PM and FS if they can’t see the long-term damage this could do to the UK, USA and long-term world peace?
The question is how do we, as ordinary voting members of the public, stop it?
February 6, 2025
Starmer is not our PM.
He seems to be trying to burnish his credentials of his perception of high moral ground world wide grandstanding, while deliberately diverting attention away from his inability to be a PM.
He prefers Davos and COP gatherings and showboating to Westminster where he has zero tolerance and appetite unable to solve Britain’s mounting mountain of problems from potholes to even more financial black holes of their own stupidity.
He resembles a male model cardboard cut out, just a wooden image. All work delegated to lesser folk while he basks in international credit (and ridicule).
February 6, 2025
Is the UK payng Mauritius’ legal bills?
February 6, 2025
145 criminals arrived in the UK yesterday; from the safe country of France …
February 6, 2025
They simply don’t care.
February 7, 2025
Trotskyite Starmer’s gang are not inept. They act on principle. They hate Britain’s imperial past. They hate the idea of UK needing military facilities outside the UK because it would be imperial and an act of White Supremacy. They believe the UK should be paying reparations and in sufficient amounts to fully satisfy any non-white foreign power that asks. Starmer said at PMQs that Labour merely completed the last few rounds of negotiations previously initiated and conducted by the Tory Party – 9 out of 13 rounds, if memory serves. I don’t know but I would not be surprised if the Tories would have reached the same agreement as Starmer’s Gang.
Labour tried to get rid of overseas posessions before: the Falklands (Wilson) and Gibraltar (Wilson and Blair). All were stopped by referenda and, in the case of the Falklands, also by Mrs Thatcher. At least in the good old days the people were asked. Modern Socialists don’t ask the people, they command people and imprison objectors.
Reply Cameron concluded it was a bad deal and stopped it