When the Labour Government gleefully said in October last year that it had agreed with the Mauritian Government to hand over sovereignty of British Indian Ocean Territory and it was all a done deal, I knew that ministers were massively underestimating the fightback.
Just nine days before they made the announcement, I had asked the Government in parliament to publish the timeline for their negotiations with Mauritius. Labour ministers told me it was ‘too early to speculate’.
This sort of misleading and shoddy behaviour has continued in the months following the announcement, with little detail being given to the public or to parliamentarians by ministers about the development of the so-called deal.
In my view, there are three major issues: the security implications, the cost and the precedent it will set.
It is for these reasons that I believe Labour should now abandon this reckless deal and show some of their own initiative, effectively cutting their political and diplomatic losses, even before they are probably forced to by President Donald Trump.
On the security aspect, the Chagos Islands are of critical strategic importance to the US and the UK. Diego Garcia, the military base on the largest of the 60 islands, is in a prime position in the Indian Ocean.
The previous Conservative government set out the Indo-Pacific Tilt in the Integrated Review in 2021, underlining the importance of the region to our economy and to our security. However, Labour are – inexplicably (though perhaps constant trips to Beijing has something to do with it) – trying to tilt Western powers away from this crucial region.
Mauritius is a signatory of the African Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone Treaty – meaning under this deal, the US could be blocked from keeping nuclear weapons on the base. This will be unacceptable for any US Commander-in-Chief and should also be for any UK Prime Minister. This will be the main reason the US will probably torpedo the deal, given that at the start of every incoming administration, a new President must re-establish the long list of security agreements between the UK and US. The deal can be killed with the stroke of President Trump’s pen.
Then there is the cost. Again, Labour have remained tight-lipped about how much the British taxpayer may have to fork out to lease a military base on an island we currently have control over – despite my repeated questions in parliament.
However, recent reports have stated that Britain is offering to pay Mauritius £90 million a year over the initial 99-year lease period. That would be almost £9 billion – roughly the amount of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ fiscal headroom swallowed by bond market turmoil. The annual payment itself would represent about 0.7% of Mauritius’s entire current GDP. Mauritius will see its sovereign debt rating uplifted overnight.
Most of us cannot fathom just how big this cost is. Those close to negotiations also say the Government has even offered to frontload years’ worth of payments to try and get the deal over the line. It is a huge slice of the fiscal pie.
When I asked ministers about this, I was told details of financial arrangements would not be made public unless the Government is compelled to release them by parliament. Parliament should make that happen even if the deal is blocked, so British taxpayers get to see just how much cash Starmer put on the negotiating table.
Finally, securing this deal and handing over sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territory will set a dangerous precedent for other British Overseas Territories around the world.
I have previously asked the Government for their position on other Overseas Territories, but given how I was misled over British Indian Ocean Territory, I am disinclined to trust their answers.
It is a bit of a mystery why Labour pushed this endeavour so far up their priority list, making it one of the first things they did in government. There is a lot else happening in the foreign policy and economic files – we haven’t got to the bottom of why ministers made this such a priority.
Regardless of the reason, Labour need to abandon this botched deal, and prioritise our national security and taxpayer’s pockets over their self-righteous ideologies.
If they junk this doomed deal now, they may just regain some credit with the incoming Trump administration and save themselves the embarrassment of having a major decision over UK foreign policy effectively decided by the US, which is a position that no Prime Minister should volunteer to impose on His Majesty’s Government.
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