Mauritius vows to ‘decolonise’ Chagos Islands after Starmer shelves handover

A senior official in Mauritius’ government has vowed that the Chagos Islands will be “decolonised” after Keir Starmer was forced to shelve legislation to hand the islands back to Mauritius.

On Friday, UK government officials acknowledged that they had run out of time to pass legislation within the current parliamentary session, which ends in the coming weeks, after a lack of support from Donald Trump.

After the collapse of the plan to hand the islands over voluntarily, Dhananjay Ramful, the Mauritian foreign minister, told an Indian Ocean conference in Mauritius that his government would regain control over the territory.

“We will spare no effort to seize any diplomatic or legal avenue to complete the decolonisation process,” he said, in comments that were first reported in the Sunday Telegraph. “This is a matter of justice.”

The latest setback in the UK’s bid to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, which hosts the joint US-UK Diego Garcia military base, is a sign of faltering US-UK relations after Trump’s criticism of Starmer over the war in Iran.

The US president had criticised the Chagos plan, which is backed by the US state department, telling Starmer he was “making a big mistake” by handing sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius in exchange for the UK and US being allowed to continue using their airbase.

Trump later gave qualified support, but the UK was forced to drop the bill after the US failed to give its approval by formally exchanging letters to amend a 1966 British-American treaty on the islands. A new Chagos bill is not now expected to feature in the king’s speech in May, where the government’s agenda for the coming parliament is revealed.

The Chagos Islands are officially known as British Indian Ocean Territory and have been controlled by the UK since the 19th century. In 2019, the international court of justice found that the UK unlawfully separated the islands from Mauritius before it granted independence to the country in 1968. Thousands of islanders were then forcibly deported to make way for the US-UK military base.

A government spokesperson said: “Diego Garcia is a key strategic military asset for both the UK and the US. Ensuring its long-term operational security is, and will continue to be, our priority – it is the entire reason for the deal.

“We continue to believe 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.”

The shelved plan, which was agreed with the previous US president Joe Biden, would have seen Britain cede sovereignty of the Chagos to Mauritius and pay about £35bn to lease the airbase back for 99 years.

Simon McDonald, a former permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the government had “no other choice” than to halt the deal. “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,” he said.

The Mauritius attorney general, Gavin Glover, said the outcome “does not come as a surprise”, blaming it on strained relations between Trump and Starmer, reported Arab News. “We are dependent on Anglo-American relations … the US and Britain will have to reach an agreement,” Glover told a local newspaper. Mauritius is planning to meet the British government on 22 April over the Chagos deal, he said.

On Sunday, the health secretary, Wes Streeting, denied that the UK’s deal to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius was moribund. “It is fair to say there has been a shift in position in Washington,” he said. “We’ve been clear throughout that the objective is to make sure we secure the Chagos Islands for the long term in British and American interests. I think there are lots of people in the US administration who understand what we’re trying to achieve, who support that objective.”