For the last few days, senior Tory politicians have been fulminating over Labour’s betrayal (betrayal, I tell you!) in handing over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
For those who don’t know, the Chagos Islands are part of the British Indian Ocean Territory and have been under British control since 1814. Before Mauritius went independent in the 1960s, the country’s government sold the islands to Britain for a tidy sum. However, a different government later claimed the sale was void. In 2010, Mauritius initiated legal proceedings in an effort to gain control of the islands. To this day, there is a strategically important joint US/UK military base on one of them, Diego Garcia.
So what have these senior Tories been saying about the Chagos?
In a piece for the Daily Mail, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote that we have “so pathetically handed them over” because “our country is now run by people who despise the legacy and memory of the British Empire, and who fundamentally want it disposed of”.
In a speech to the House of Commons, Conservative leadership candidate Robert Jenrick bellowed that we gave up control of the islands “so the foreign secretary can feel good about himself at his next north London dinner party”. Jenrick then posed the rhetorical question, “In whose interests does he think he serves: those of the global diplomatic elite, or those of the British people and our national interest?”
On Twitter, former Foreign Secretary James Cleverly declared, “Weak, weak, weak!” This was a particularly absurd thing to say, since negotiations over the islands actually began in 2022 under none other than… James Cleverly. (Numerous commenters were only too happy to point this out in the replies, and his tweet was slapped with an embarrassing Community Note.)
The general thrust of the criticism from senior Tories was that Labour’s decision had been motivated by some kind of left-wing, anti-colonial ideology.
Fast forward to yesterday evening and we find out it was the US behind the decision. As the Telegraph reported, “senior officials from the White House’s National Security Council and State Department told the incoming Labour government that refusing to sign away the islands would jeopardise the “special relationship” with Washington”. It’s unclear how the Telegraph came to know this, but it was presumably through some sort of leak.
Why did the Americans tell Labour to hand over the islands? According to the Telegraph, they feared that “if it was not signed, Mauritius would successfully apply for a binding ruling at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to take control of the islands, effectively shuttering the air base”. This doesn’t make a great deal of sense. My understanding is that the UK could have simply refused to consent to the ICJ’s jurisdiction over the matter, having already ignored the court’s advisory ruling in 2019.
One possibility is that the US made a side deal with Mauritius that involved telling the UK to hand over the islands – perhaps in order to gain influence in the country at the expense of China. This seems to me the most likely explanation for what happened.
Another possibility is that the Telegraph report is false and there was no US pressure at all. This doesn’t seem very likely. On October 3rd, Biden made a statement expressing his strong support for the handover. “I applaud the historic agreement and conclusion of the negotiations between the Republic of Mauritius and the United Kingdom,” he said. Biden’s statement flies in the face of Tory claims that, by giving up control of the islands, we were somehow abandoning our American allies. In fact, we are doing exactly what they wanted.
What’s ironic about the whole incident is that the people who were most outraged by Labour’s decision (people like Boris Johnson) are among the most fervent advocates of Britain’s supposed ‘special relationship’ with the United States. They need to wake up and smell the vassal status.
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Marvellous!
The Democrats don’t like the British Empire even though they have one of their own!
Badenoch is now third in the Conservative leadership election.
So the Conservatives will be led by another Westminster yes man cardboard cut out.
Reform.
Anyone conservative was always going to be removed from the ‘choice’ – we know that…
She is only parading her ‘conservative’ values to win over the sucker membership vote. And boy oh boy any member left in the Tory party is either a sucker or a wet.
Badenoch would become a cardboard cut out yes lady too. They don’t become leader without taking the Danegeld.
The tail end of the left wing Biden administration (likely run by Obama for most of the past 4 years) just doesn’t care. Most politicians have short time horizons.
Aside from the security issue, they were ours and had never been meaningfully Mauritian. There might be minerals in their territorial area.
We know Mauritius cannot protect and secure these islands over 2000 miles.
Whoever comes at the top heap won’t be relevant for long. The Tories haven’t learned anything over the last few months and until they unite with a common purpoe they are doomed.
What is all this tosh about the “special relationship”? American foreign policy is directed at protecting the interests of the United States – and no one else. In other words the “special relationship” is a childish delusion peddled by adults who ought to know better.
It is where the UK bends over and the US decides how far it will shaft us.
You are absolutely correct. How many countries and politicians have been destroyed by this fallacy of a special relationship with Washington? Politicians delude themselves and fall into this hole because of their need and quest to be close to power. Bliar is a good example.
Next on the list will be Gibraltar …. demonstrating our continuing vassal status to the EU.
This is what happens when you have a treacherous parcel o’ rogues running a nation …… the kind we’ve had since the 1960s.
“… the country’s government sold the islands to Britain for a tidy sum.”
So we can get that back with interest and allowance for inflation and pay the pensioners’ Winter fuel allowance – or buy Free Gear Keir a new suit.
None of these shenanigans will get a single Chagos Islander back to their islands though, at least they won’t be our problem anymore.
Of course if the Yanks did tell Liebour to hand over the Islands lets hope Mauritius doesn’t now ask them to leave too but if they do I hope the yanks will have the good sense to totally and utterly demolish all infrastructure, and flood with concrete anything underground.